Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 155, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1915 — Dark Hollow [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Dark Hollow

By Anna Katharine Green

Dkisirerfiors & C.D 12hodes COPYRIGHT Pl - DODD./AEAO COAYPyvMS/

CHAPTER XVlll—Connued. He was In no better moo<fttaan myself to encounter insult, bad been a simple difference biwlen us flAmed into a quarrel which reached Its culmination when he mentioned Oliver’s name with a taunt, whim the boy, for all bis obstinate clingi\g to bis journalistic idea, did not desefce. Knowing my own temper, | Irew back into the Hollow. 'J He followed me. I I tried to speak. 1 He took the word out of my outh. This may have been with the utent of quelling my anger, but th tone was rasping, and, noting this ait not his words, my hand tightened sibly about the stick which thejievil (or John Scoville) had put in myl and. Did he see this, dr was he proasted by some old memory of boyish Barrels that he should give utteranil tb that quick, sharp laugh of scorn] 1 shall never know, but pro the sand had ceased the stick was whirling oer my head —there came a crash andpe fell. My friend! My friend! Next moment the earth seemed io narrow, the heavens too contractu for my misery. That he was deadlthat my blow had killed him, I newdoubted for an inßtant. I knew itjas we know the face of Doom when ace It has risen upon us. Never, offer again would this lump of clay, wllch a few minutes before had filled the Hollow with khrlllest whistmg, breathe or think or speak. He as dead, dead, dead !i—And I? What wall? The name which no man hearn# moved, no amount of repetition n&Kes easy to the tongue or welcome u the ear! . . . the name which I had heard launched in full forensic eloquence so many times in acbuc tlon against the wretches I had hard regarded as being in the same h man class as myself rang in my ea i as though Intoned from the very r rath of helL I could not escape it. I s >uld never be able to escape it train. Though I .was standing in a fatnliar scene—a scene I had known anil frequented from childhood, I felt myself as isolated from my past and as completely set apart from my fellows as the shipwrecked mariner tosed to precarious foothol<L on his dashed rock. I forgot that- other criminals existed. . In that one awful moment J was in my own eyes the only blot ipon the universe—the sole Inhabitant of the new world into which I had nunged—the world of crime—the wcrld upon which I had sat in judgmentf.before I knew— U What broke the spell? Gad knows; all I can say is that, drawn|by some other will than my own, I found my glance traveling up the opposing bluff till at its top, framed between the ragged wall towering chimney of Spencer’s FwEy, I saw the presence I had dreaded, the witness who was to undo me. »

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It wag g .woman—a woman with a little child In hand: I did not see her face./'jr she was just on the point of tu' vhg away from the dizzy verge, but i ling could have been plainer than thf silhouette which these two made against the flush of that early evening eky. v-> As long as I could catch a glimpse of this woman’s fluttering skirt as she retreated through the ruins, I stood there, self-convicted, above the man I had slain, staring up at that blotch of shining eky which was as the gate of hell to me. Not till their two figures had disappeared and it was quite clear again did the Instinct of self-preserva-tion return, and with it the thought of flight. . But where could I flyT No spot In the whole world was secret enough to ".onceal me now. I was a marked man. Better to stand my ground, and take the consequences than to act the coward’s part and slink away like those, other men of blood I had so often sat in judgment upon.

Had I but followed this Impulse! Ha<V I but gone among my fellows, shown them the mark of Chin upon my forehead and prayed, not for indulgence. but punishment, what days of gnawing misery I should have been spared! * . The horror of what lay at my feet drove me from the Hollow. As my steps fell mechanically into the trail down which I had come in innocence and kindly purpose only a few minutes before, a startling thought shot through my benumbed mind. The woman had shown no haste in her turning! There had been a naturalness in her movement, a dignity and a grace which spoke of ease, not shock. What if she had not seen! What if my deed waß as yet unknown! Might I not have time lor—flox what? I did not Btop to tbin£; 1,/just pressed on, saying to myself, “Let Providence decide. If I meet any one before I reach my own door my doom ts settled. If I do not —“a And I did not As I turned into the lane from the ravine I heard a sound fax down the slope, but it was too distant to create apprehension, and I went calmly on, myself into my usual leisurely gait, if only to

gain some control over my own emotions before coming under Oscar’s eye. That sound I have never understood. It could not have been Scoville, since in the short time which had passed he could not have fled from the point where I heard him last into the ravine below Ostrander lane. But, if not he, who was it? Or if it was he, and some other hand threw his stick across my path, whose was this hand and why have we never heard anything about it? It is a question which sometimes floated through my mind, but 1 did not give it a thought then. I was within sight of home and Oliver’s possible presence; and all other dread was as nothing in comparison tb what I felt at the prospect of meeting my boy’s eye. My boy’s eye! my greatest dread then, and my greatest dread still! In my terror of it I walked as to my doom. The house, which I had left empty, I found empty; Oliver had not yet returned. The absolute stillness of the rooms seemed appalling. Instinctively I looked .at the clock. It had stopped. Not at the minute —I do not say it was at the minute —but near, very near the time when from an innocent man I became a guilty one. Appalled at the discovery, I fled to the front. Opening the door, I looked out Not a creature in sight, and not a sound to be heard. The road was as lonely and seemingly as forsaken as the house. Had time stopped here, too? Were the world and its interests at a pause in horror of my deed? For a moment I believed it; then more natural sensations intervened, and, rejoicing at this lack of. disturbance where disturbance meant discovery. I qtepped Inside again, rewound the clock, and sat down in my own room. My own room! Was it mine any longer? Its walls looked strange; the petty objects of my daily handling, unfamiliar. The change in myself infected everything I saw. I might have been in another man’s house for all connection these things seemed to have with me or my life. Like one set apart on an unapproachable shore, I stretched hands In vain toward all that I had known and all that had been of value to me.

But as the minutes passed I began to lose this feeling. Hope, which I thought quite dead, slowly revived. Nothing had' happened, and perhaps nothing would. Men had been killed before, and the slayer passed unrecognized. Why might it not be so in my case? If the woman continued to remain silent; if for any reason She had not witnessed the blow or the striker, who else was there to connect me with an assault Committed a quarter of a mile away? No one knew of the quarrel; and If they did, who could be so daring as to associate one of my nathe with an action so brutal? A judge slay his friend! It would take evidence of a very marked character to make even my political enemies believe that As the twilight deepened I rose from my seat and lit the gas. I must not be found sku&ing la the dark. Then I began to count the ticks measuring off the hour. If thirty minutes more passed without .a rush fr.om without I might hope. If twenty ?—if ten ?—then it was five! then-it was—■

Ah! The gate had clanged They were coming. I cpuld hear steps—voices—a loud ring at the bell. I moved slowly toward the front. I feared the betrayal which my ashy face and trembling hands might make.Agitation sifter the news was to be expected, but pot before! So I left the ball dark when I opened the door. And thus decided my future. For in the faces of the small crowd which blocked the doorway I detected pothing but coßUPiseratiop; and when a voice spoke and I heard Oliver’s accents surcharged with nothing more grievous than pity, I realized that my secret was as yet unshared, and, seeing that no man suspected me, I forebore to' declare my guilt to anyone. This'sudden restoration from soundless depths into, the pure air of respect and sympathy confused me; and beyond the words “Killed! Struck down by the bridge!” 1 beard little, till slowly, dully, like the call of a bell issuing from a smothering mist. I caught the sound of a name, it struck my ear and gradually it dawned upon my consciousness that another man had been arrested for my crime and

that the safety, the reverence and the commiseration that were so dear to me had been bought at a price no man of honor might pay. But I was no longer a man of honor. I was a wretched criminal swaying above a gulf of infamy in which I had seen others swallowed but had never dreamed of being engulfed myself. . I never thought of letting myself not at this crisis—not while my heart was warm with its resurgence into the old Use. , And so I let pass this opportunity for confession. Afterwards it was too late —or seemed toq late to my demoralized judgment. My first real awakening to the extraordinary horrors of my position was when I realized that circumstances were likely to force me into

presiding over the trial of the man Scoville. I feigned sickness, only to realise that my place would be takeh by Judge Groevenor, a notoriously prejudiced man. If he sat, it would go hard with the prisoner, and I wanted the prisoner acquitted. I had no grudge against John Scoville. Of course l wanted to save him, and if the only help I could now give him was to sit as judge upon his case, then would I sit as judge whatever mental torture it involved. Sending for Mr. Black, I asked him point blank whether in face of the circumstance that the victim of this murder was my best friend, he would not prefer to plead his case before Judge Grosvenor. He answered no: that he had more confidence in my equity even under these circumstances than in that of my able, but headstrong collogue, and prayed me to get well. He did not say that he expected me on this very account to show even more favor toward his client than I might otherwise have done, but I am sure that he meant it; and, taking his attitude as an omen, I obeyed his Injunction and was soon well enough to take my seat upon the bench. What men saw facing them from the bench web an automaton wound up to do so much work each day. The real Ostrander was not there, but stood, an unseen presence at the bar, undergoing trial side by side with John Scoville, for a crime to make angels weep and humanity hide its head: hypocrisy! But the days went by and the inexorable hour drew nigh for the accused man’s release or condemnation. Circumstances were against him —so was his bearing, which I alone understood. If, as all felt. It was that of a guilty man, it was so because he had been guilty in intent if not in fact. He had meant to attack Algernon Etheridge. He had run down the ravine for that purpose, knowing my old friend’s whistle and etavying him his watch. Or why his foolish story of having left his stick behind him? But the sound of my approaching steps higher up on the path had stopped him in midcareer and sent him rushing up

the slope ahead of me. When he came back after a short circuit of the fields beyond, it was to find hiß crime forestalled and by the very weapon he had thrown into the Hollow as he went scurrying by. He had meant to attack Etheridge. It was the shock of the discovery of the body, heightened by the use he made of it to secure the booty thus thrown in his way without crime, which gave him

the hang-dog look we all noted That there were - other reasons—that the place recalled aucther scene of brutality in which intention bad' bqen followed by act, I did not then know. It was sufficient to me then that my safety was secured by his own guilty consciousness and the prevarications into' which it led him.. Instead of owning up to the encounter he bad so barely, escaped be confined himself to the simple declaration of having heard voices somewhere near the bridge, which to all who know the ravine appeared impossible under the conditions named.

Yet, for all the incongruities and the failure of his counsel to produce any definite impression by the prisoner’s persistent denial of having whittled the stick or even of having carried it into Dark Hollow, 1 expected a verdict in his favor. Indeed. I was so confident of it that I suffered less during the absence of the jury than at any other, time, and when - they returned, with an air of solemn decision which proclaims unanimity of mind and a ready verdict, I wa so prepared for his acquittal that for the first time since the opening of the trial I felt myßelf a being of flesh and blood, with human sentiments and hopes. And It was: “Guilty!” When I awoke to a full realization of what this entailed (for ! must have lost consciousness for $ minute, though no one seemed to notice), the one fact staring me In the face was tHat it Would devolve upon me to pronounce his sentence; upon me, Archibald Ostrander, an automaton no longer, but a man realising to the full his part In this miscarriage of Justice. Chaos confronted me, and in contemplation of It, I fell AL Somehow, strange as it may appear, I bad thought little of this possibility

previous to this moment, f found my self upon the brink of this new gulf before the dizziness of my escape from the other had fully passed. Do you wonder that I recoiled, sought to gain time, put off delivering the sentence from day to day? I had sinned —sinned irredeemably—but there are depths of infamy beyond which a man cannot go. I had reached that point What saved me? A new discovery, and the loving sympathy of my son Oliver. One night—a momentous one to me —he came to my room and, closing the door behind him, stood with his back to It, contemplating me in a way that startled me. What had happened? What lay behind this new and penetrating look, this anxious and yet persistent manner? I dared not think. 1 dared not yield to the terror which must follow thought Terror blanches the cheek and my cheek must never blanch under anybody’s scrutiny. Never, never, so long as 1 lived. “Father"—the tone quieted me. tor i knew from its gentleness that he was hesitating to speak more on his own account than on mine—“you are not looking well; this thing worries you. I hate to see you like this. Is It Just the losb of your old friend, or —or —” He faltered, not knowing how to proceed. ' .' “Sometimes 1 think," he recommenced, “that you don’t feel quite sure of this man Scovllle’s guilt. Is that so? Tell me, father?**I did not know what to make of him. There was no shrinking from me; no conscious or unconscious accusation In voice or look, but there was a desire to know, and a certain latent resolve behind It all that marked the line between obedient boyhood and thinking, determining man. With all my dread —a dread so great I felt the first grasp of age upon my heartstrings at that moment —I recognized no other course than to meet this inquiry of his with the truth —that Is, with just so much of the truth as was needed. No more, not one Jot mqre. I therefore answered, and with a show of self-possession at which I now wonder:

“You are not far from right, Oliver. I have had moments of doubt The evidence, as yon must have noticed. Is purely circumstantial.” “What evidence would satisfy you? What would you consider a conclusive proof of guilt?” I told him In the set phrases of my profession. “Then," he declared as I finished, “you may rest easy as to this man’s right to receive a sentence of death.” I could not trust my ears. “I know from personal observation,” he proceeded, approaching me with a firm step, “that he Is not only capable of the crime for which he has been convicted, but that he has actually committed one under similar circumstances, and possibly for the same end." .And he told me the story of thst night of Ltorm and bloodshed —a story which will be found lying near this, In my alcove of shame and contrition. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

He Was Dead, Dead, Dead—and I? What Was I?