Tristrem to tie his hands. Then,
too, was the horror of such a thing. There is nothing, a Scandinavian
poet has said, more beautiful than a beautiful revenge; yet when a man
is so tender of heart that if it be raining he will hesitate to shoo a
persistent fly out of the window, it is difficult for that man, however
great the aggravation, to take another's life. Besides, the impulse
which had acted in Tristrem was not one of revenge. He had not the
slightest wish to take the law into his own hands. The glaive of
atonement was not one which he felt himself called upon to wield. That
which possessed him was the idea that until the world was rid of Weldon
there was a girl somewhere who could not look her own mother in the
face. And that girl was the girl whom he loved, a girl who apparently
had no other protector than himself.

In the rehearsals, it was this that had strung his nerves to acting
pitch. When it was done he proposed to go to her with a reverence even
greater than before, with a sympathy unspoken yet sentiable, and leave
her with the knowledge that the injury had been obliterated and the
shame effaced. For himself, whatever he may have hoped, he determined to
ask for nothing. It was for her he defied the law; he was her agent, one
whom she might recompense or not with her lithe white arms, but one to
whom she would at least be grateful. And how beautiful her gratitude
might be! Though she gave him nothing else, would not the thanks of her
eyes be reward enough? And then, as he worked himself up with the
thought of these things to acting pitch, then would come the horror of
it all, the necessity of taking the life of one who had been his nearest
friend, the dread of the remorse which attaches to death, the soiling of
his own hands. It was in this fashion that he had wavered between
indecision and determination, until, at last, stung by the cynicism of
Weldon's speech, there had come to him a force such as he had never
possessed before, and suddenly the deed had been done.

The possible arraignment that might follow the inquest, he had never
considered. It is said that the art of killing has been lost. The
tribunals, assizes, and general sessions have doubtless led somewhat to
its discouragement, and yet it must be admitted that the office of
police justice in one way resembles that of lover in the tropics--it is
not exactly a sinecure. Perhaps, nowadays, it is only the blunderers
that are detected; yet, however