paramour,
and when she was deserted he had taken her back again. She left him a
second time and was again deserted, and again he condoned her offence.
She left him a third time, and he went to look for her. She was living
in clover, and she jeered when he begged her to return. It was set forth
in evidence that he had told her that he would see her once more.
He walked home--a distance of three or four miles--borrowed a razor,
returned to the house in which the woman was living, asked for an
interview outside in the darkness, and there almost severed her head
from her body. He surrendered himself immediately to the police, was
tried for his life, and sentenced to be hanged.

Rightly or wrongly, the man's story inspired me with a dreadful
sympathy. I cannot help thinking to this day that the tragedy of that
man's life went unappreciated, and that his long-suffering devotion
and the passion of jealousy which at length overcame him might have
furnished Shakspeare himself with a theme as terrible as he found in
'Othello.' Anyway, the man was to be hanged and I was deputed to attend
the execution.

At that time I had never been a witness at a death scene. I have seen
thousands hurried out of life since then; and though even now I should
find an execution ugly and repellant, I recall with some astonishment
the agony of horror which this commission cost me. I had an introduction
to the sub-sheriff and another to the governor of the gaol; and I
presented these at the gaol itself on a night of rainy misery which was
in complete accord with my own feelings. I went hoping with all my heart
that the permission to attend the awful ceremony of the next morning
would be refused. It was accorded, and I left the gaol in a sick whirl
of pity and horror.

I shall remember whilst I remember anything my last look at the gloomy
building from the fields which lie between it and the town. The flying
afterguard of the late storm was hurrying across the sky, the fields
were sodden, and rainpools lay here and there reflecting the dull steely
hue of the heavens. A single light burned red and baleful in one window,
and right over the black bulk of the gaol one star beamed. It seemed to
me like a promise of mercy beyond, and I went back to my hotel filled
with thoughts which will hardly bear translation.

Next day I had a first lesson in one or two things. I saw death for the
first time; for the first time in my life I saw a human creature in th