early in the
morning of which the dawn was even now breaking.

Now, strange to say, this knowledge caused him, personally, but little
uneasiness, but on his father's account he felt infinitely distressed,
and he found himself bending his whole mind to comfort and sustain the
old man. Thus, he heard a voice, which he knew to be his own, saying
in an argumentative tone, "I assure you, father, that an extraordinary
amount of nonsense is talked nowadays concerning--well, the death
penalty. Is it possible that you do not realise that I am escaping a
much worse fate--that of having to live on? I wish, dear dad, that I
could persuade you of the truth of this."

"If only," muttered the old man in response, "if only, my boy, I could
bear it for you"; and Carden saw that his father's face was scared
with an awful look of terror and agony.

"But, indeed, father, you do not understand. Believe me, I am not
afraid--it will not be so bad, after all. So do not--pray, pray,
father, do not be so distressed."

* * * * *

And then with a great start Theodore Carden awoke--awoke to see the
small, spare figure of that same dear father, clothed in the long,
old-fashioned linen night-shirt of another day, standing by his
bed-side.

The old man held a candle in his hand, and was gazing down at his only
child with an expression of unutterable woe and grief. "I will try--I
am trying, my boy, not to be unreasonably distressed," he said.

Theodore Carden sat up in bed. Since this awful thing had come on him
he had never, even for an instant, forgotten self, but now he saw that
his sufferings were small compared with those he had brought on the
man into whose face he was gazing with red-rimmed, sunken eyes. For a
moment the wild thought came to him that he might try to explain, to
justify himself, to prove to his father that in this matter he had but
done as others do, and that the punishment was intolerably heavier
than the crime; but then, looking up and meeting Thomas Carden's
perplexed, questioning eyes, he felt a great rush of shame and horror,
not only of himself, but of all those who look at life as he himself
had always looked at it; for the first time, he understood the
mysterious necessity, as well as the beauty, of abnegation, of
renunciation.

"Father," he said, "listen. I will not go away alone; I was mad to
think of such a thing. We will go together, you and I,--Lane has told
me that such has