“Until it touches the heart,” replied Warren solemnly.
“Then it will be soon?” Warren nodded.
Thomson appeared to be thinking. “No,” he muttered finally with a sigh, “I got to own up. Colonel’s dead, ain’t he?” Warren bowed.
“Well, then, ’tain’t no use holdin’ out. Bring in the gal and Judah, an’ take down every word I say if you want the gal to have her own. You’re a lawyer, ain’t you? Sent out here on the Carlingford case, warn’t you? Never struck you that me and the Colonel knew where to find the man you was huntin’, did it?” His voice was spent, and Warren, his mind in a tumult, held a glass of liquor to the dying man’s lips, and then sent for Winona and Judah and Parson Steward. They came instantly, and with the transient vigor imparted by the liquor Thomson opened his eyes again and said, in a clear tone: “I’m here yet, Judah; I almost got the one chance you offered me, but it ain’t for long I’ll hender you; I’m goin’ fast.”
No one answered the wretch, baffled alike in base passion and violent deeds, but Parson Steward began a fervent prayer for the dying. Something of his awful need for such a petition must have filtered through the darkness of the sin-cursed heart and he presently comprehended dimly the great change before him. He whispered at the close:
“That’s all right, Parson. I know I deviled you an’ tried to kill you; I did the same to the nigger—an’ to Maxwell—but I done the girl worse ’n dirt. That’s me you described in your prayer—a devilish wicked cuss, but I warn’t always so, an’ d—— me ef I ain’t sorry! I’m goin’ to try to make the damage I’ve done, good—to the girl, anyhow.”
“Miserable sinners, miserable sinners, all of us. Madness is in our hearts while we live, and after that we go to the dead. God forgive us,” muttered the Parson, not noting the dying man’s profanity.
“Take down every word I say, Mr. Maxwell, an’ let me kiss the Book that it’s all true.”
The scene was intensely dramatic. Winona sat with clasped hands folded on her breast; she knew not what new turn of Fortune’s wheel awaited her. Judah’s dark, handsome face and stalwart form were in the background where he stood in a group formed by Captain Brown and his sons, who had been called to witness the confession.
As for Warren Maxwell, he felt the most intense excitement he had ever experienced in his life. His hands shook; he could scarcely hold the pen. Most of us creatures of flesh and blood know what that terrible feeling of suspense, of dread, with which we approach a crisis in our fate. It is indefinable, but comes alike to strong and weak, bold and timid. Such a crisis Maxwell felt was approaching in the fate of Winona and himself. There in we recognize the mesmeric force which holds mankind in an eternal brotherhood. Stronger than all in life, perhaps, is this mysterious force when a man feels that he has