strain of the last few hours were crying out for stimulant. He had not even a cigarette left—and he dared not go near enough to human habitation to purchase any. Oh, yes, he had money, a whole roll of it. He felt in his pocket to make sure. He had taken it out of his bank that morning, cashed the whole of his allowance check, to pay several bills that had been persecuting him, things he did not want dad to know about. Of course there were those things he had bought for Bessie and had sent up. He was glad he had done that much for her before he killed her. Yet what good would it ever do her now? She was dead. And her mother would never know where they came from. Indeed Bessie would not know either. He had told her they were for a friend and he wanted her help in selecting them. Perhaps Bessie would not have liked his gift after all. He had not thought of that before. Girls of her class—but she was not any class—no type that he knew—just one of her kind, so how could he judge? But somehow it dawned upon him that Bessie would not have taken expensive gifts even from him, an old friend. That entered his consciousness with a dull thud of disappointment. But then Bessie would never know now that he had sent them up. Or did they know after death? Was there a hereafter? He knew Mrs. Chapparelle believed in one. She used to talk about Heaven as if it were another room, a best room, where she would one day go and dress up all the time in white. At least that was what his childish imagination had gleaned[Pg 32] from the stories she used to read to him and Bessie. But then if Bessie knew about the gifts she would also know his heart—Stay! Would he want her to know his heart—all his life!

[Pg 31]

[Pg 32]

He groaned aloud and then held his breath lest the night had heard him. Oh, he was crazy! He must find a spot to lie down, or else he might as well go and give himself up to justice. He was not fit to protect himself. He was foolish with sleep.

He crept into a wood at last, on a hillside above the road, and threw himself down exhausted among some bushes quite hidden from the road in the darkness.

He was not conscious of anything as he drifted away into exhausted sleep. It was as if he with all his overwhelming burden of disgrace and horror and fear was being dragged down through the ooze of the earth out of sight for ever, being obliterated, and glad that it was so.

He woke in the late morning with a sense of bewilderment and sickness upon him. The light was shining broad across 

 Prev. P 17/187 next