"If there be any whom you have not yet forgiven; if there be any wrong
you yet may right, let not the sun go down upon your wrath, my son, for
verily, you must forgive as you would be forgiven. Upon no less terms
than these can you win the pardon and absolution of Heaven."
It was the voice of the solemn, black-robed priest, and he stood in the
gloomy cell of a convicted murderer, who, before the sunset of another
day was to expiate his terrible sin by a felon's death.
Even now from the gloomy prison-yard outside could be heard the awful
sound of the hammers driving the nails into his scaffold.
Upon the low, cot bed reclined the handsome demon whom we have known in
our story as Leon Vinton.
Wasted and worn in his coarse prison garb and clanking fetters, there
was still much of that princely beauty left that had lured youth and
innocence to their deadly ruin.
But the reckless, Satanic smile was gone from his pallid, marble-like
features now, and a glance of anguished terror and dread shone forth
from his hollow, black eyes.
Like many another wretched sinner in his dying hour, Leon Vinton was
afraid of the vengeance of that God whom he had despised and defied all
his wicked life.
All day the priests had been with him, praying, chanting, exhorting, and
now the chilly, gloomy December day was fading to its close, and the
long, dreary night hurried on--his last night upon the beautiful earth,
through which he had walked as a destroying demon, scattering the
fire-brand of ruin and remorse along his evil pathway.
"And now he feels, and yet shall know,
In realms where guilt shall end no gloom,
The perils of inflicted woe,
The anguish of the liar's doom!
He hears a voice none else may hear,
It bids his burning spirit pause;
It bids thee, murderer! appear
Where angels plead the victim's cause!"
Almost a year had passed since the tragic death of unhappy Sydney Lyle.
Now outraged justice was about to avenge her death.
Conviction had followed swiftly upon the murderer's arrest and
imprisonment.
When he had left poor Jennie Thorn, his betrayed and ruined victim,
fainting upon the floor, with his demoniacal words ringing in her ears,
he had little dreamed how and when he should meet her again.
Perhaps he thought she would pass silently from his life as other
wronged ones had done, and never be seen or heard of again.
Not the slightest premonition of evil had come to tell him that the
hatred he had stirred to life in her once loving heart would pursue him
to the scaffold.
Yet so it was, and Jennie Thorn had stood up in the witness-box and
given, under oath, the testimony that had cost him his life--had given
it gladly, triumphantly, without one thrill of pity or regard for the
man she had once loved and trusted.
Well, it was all over now--the trial was a thing of the past--to-morrow
the sentence of the law would be carried out and his neck would be
broken upon the scaffold.
Many a time when he thought of it now with a sick and shuddering horror,
he recalled the angry words that Queenie Lyle had spoken to him years
ago:
"_They cannot be drowned who are born to be hung._"
His reckless, wicked career was over. He had cheated men of their
substance at the gaming-table, he had robbed women of what was dearer,
their peace and honor, without a thought of the retribution that would
fall on him from the God he had offended.
But now when the priest came to him and told him solemnly and sadly what
terrors awaited him if he died unrepentant, remorse and terror struck
their terrible fangs into his guilty heart.
"I have done many wrongs that nothing can ever set right, father," he
said humbly to the meek priest. "But there is one black falsehood
hanging heavy on my heart, one sin I may in some little way atone for.
Will you send Lawrence Ernscliffe to see me to-night? I will tell him
how cruelly I wronged the lovely woman he married and how pure and
innocent she was then and ever. And Jennie Thorn, father. Will you ask
her to come and see me? I will beg her to forgive me."
"I will send Captain Ernscliffe to you, my son, if he will come, but
Jennie Thorn--that is impossible!"
"Is she so bitter and unrelenting, then!" said the prisoner, sadly.
"Let us hope not," said the gentle priest. "But she is gone away, my
son.
"Immediately after your trial and conviction she left the United States
and returned to England as the wife of the detective who effected your
arrest."
The prisoner sighed and bent his head.
The priest bowed over him a moment, murmured a benediction and passed
out through the heavy iron door that shut Leon Vinton in forever from
the busy, beautiful world.