far, and might even this time if it were exerted to its utmost. Had Bessie been a stranger it would probably have been his refuge still. But Bessie was not a stranger, and there was grace enough in his heart to know that never to his own self could he excuse, or pass over, what he had done to her and to her kind sweet mother, who had so often mothered him in the years that were past.

A little tinkling bell broke the spell that was upon him—the old-fashioned door-bell in the Chapparelle kitchen just above the door that led to the front of the house. He started and lifted his head. He could see the vibration of the old bell on its rusty spring just as he had watched it in wonder the first time he had seen it when a child. Mrs. Chapparelle was hastening with her quick step to open the door. He caught the flutter of her apron as she passed into the hall. And what would she meet at the door? Were they bringing Bessie’s body home, so soon—! Or was it merely some one sent to break the news? Oh,[Pg 28] he ought to have prepared her for it. He ought to be in there now lying at her feet and begging her forgiveness, helping her to bear the awful sorrow that he had brought upon her. She had been kind to him and he ought to be brave enough to face things and do anything there was to do—but instead he was flying down the court on feet that trembled so they could scarcely bear his weight, feet that were leaden and would not respond to the desperate need that was upon him, feet that seemed to clatter on the smooth cement as if they were made of steel. Some one would hear him. They would be after him. No one else would fly that way from a house of sorrow save a murderer! Coward! He was a coward! A sneak and a coward!

[Pg 28]

And he had loved Bessie! Yes, he knew now that was why he was so glad when he saw her standing on the corner after all those years—glad she finally yielded to his request and rode with him, because she had suddenly seemed to him the desire of his heart, the consummation of all the scattered loves and longings of his young life. How pretty she had been! And now she was dead!

His heart cried out to be with her, to cry into her little dead ear that he was sorry; to make her know before she was utterly gone, before her visible form was gone out of this earth, how he wished he was back in the childhood days with her to play with always. He drew a breath like a sob as he hurried along, and a passer-by turned and looked after him. With a kind of sixth sense he understood that he had laid himself open to suspicion, and cut sharply down another turning[Pg 29] into 

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