“Mr. Evans stopped and said something to me that night. He said we had to live things down, and not die them down; he wanted I should wait till Saturday before I was sure that I couldn't get through Tuesday. He said, How did we know that death was the end of trouble?”
“Yes,” said the minister, with a smile of fondness for his friend; “that was like Evans all over.”
“I sha'n't forget those things,” said Lemuel. “They've been in my head ever since. If it hadn't been for them, I don't know what I should have done.”
He stopped, and after a moment's inattention Sewell perceived that he wished to be asked something more. “I hope,” he said, “that nothing more has been going wrong with you?” and as he asked this he laid his hand affectionately on the young man's shoulder, just as Evans had done. Lemuel's eyes dimmed and his breath thickened. “What has become of the person—the discharged convict?”
“I guess I had better tell you,” he said; and he told him of the adventure with Berry and Williams.
Sewell listened in silence, and then seemed quite at a loss what to say; but Lemuel saw that he was deeply afflicted. At last he asked, lifting his eyes anxiously to Sewell's, “Do you think I did wrong to say the thief was a friend of mine, and get him off that way?”
“That's a very difficult question,” sighed Sewell. “You had a duty to society.”
“Yes, I've thought of that since!”
“If I had been in your place, I'm afraid I should be glad not to have thought of it in time; and I'm afraid I'm glad that, as it is, it's too late. But doesn't it involve you with him in the eyes of the other young man?” “Yes, I presume it does,” said Lemuel. “I shall have to go away.”
“Back to Willoughby Pastures?” asked Sewell, with not so much faith in that panacea for Lemuel's troubles as he had once had.