?"

"Because you ride fast with the devil."

"What is the good of riding fast?"

"In the rush a man forget."

"What does he forget, my friend?"

There was a pause, in which a man with a load of crime upon his soul
dwelt upon the words my friend, coming from the lips of one who knew the
fulness of his iniquity. Then he answered:

"In the noise he forget that a voice is calling in his ear, 'You did
It!' He forget what he see in his dreams. He forget the hand that touch
him on the arm when he walk in the woods alone, or lie down to sleep at
night, no one near. He forget that some one wait--wait--wait, till he
has suffer long enough, or till, one day, he think he is happy again,
and the Thing he did is far off like a dream--to drag him out to the
death he did not die. He forget that he is alone--all alone in the
world, for ever and ever and ever."

He suddenly sank upon the floor beside Charley, and a groan burst from
his lips. "To have no friend--ah, it is so awful!" he said. "Never to
see a face that look into yours, and know how bad are you, and doesn't
mind. For five years I have live like that. I cannot let any one be
my friend because I was that! They seem to know--everything,
everybody--what I am. The little children when I pass them run away to
hide. I have wake in the night and cry out in fear, it is so lonely. I
have hear voices round me in the woods, and I run and run and run from
them, and not leave them behind. Three times I go to the jails in Quebec
to see the prisoners behind the bars, and watch the pains on their
faces, to understand what I escape. Five times have I go to the courts
to listen to murderers tried, and watch them when the Jury say Guilty!
and the Judge send them to death--that I might know. Twice have I go to
see murderers hung. Once I was helper to the hangman, that I might hear
and know what the man said, what he felt. When the arms were bound, I
felt the straps on my own; when the cap come down, I gasp for breath;
when the bolt is shot, I feel the wrench and the choke, and shudder go
through myself--feel the world jerk out in the dark. When the body is
bundled in the pit, I see myself lie still under the quick-lime with the
red mark round my throat."

Charley touched him on the shoulder. "Jo--poor Jo, my friend!" he said.
Jo raised his eyes, red with an unnatural fire, deep with gratitude.

"As I sit at my dinner, with the sun shining and the woods green and
glad, and all the worl