u will be so good, I--'

Boom! That distant bell again, tolling the half-hour faintly through
the tempest of wind and sleet. The door opened, and the governor and the
mother and child entered--the woman in widow's weeds! She fell upon her
husband's breast in a passion of sobs, and I--I could not stay; I could
not bear it. I went into the bedchamber, and closed the door. I sat
there waiting--waiting--waiting, and listening to the rattling sashes
and the blustering of the storm. After what seemed a long, long time, I
heard a rustle and movement in the parlour, and knew that the clergyman
and the sheriff and the guard were come. There was some low-voiced
talking; then a hush; then a prayer, with a sound of sobbing; presently,
footfalls--the departure for the gallows; then the child's happy voice:
'Don't cry now, mamma, when we've got papa again, and taking him home.'

The door closed; they were gone. I was ashamed: I was the only friend of
the dying man that had no spirit, no courage. I stepped into the room,
and said I would be a man and would follow. But we are made as we are
made, and we cannot help it. I did not go.

I fidgeted about the room nervously, and presently went to the window
and softly raised it--drawn by that dread fascination which the terrible
and the awful exert--and looked down upon the court-yard. By the
garish light of the electric lamps I saw the little group of privileged
witnesses, the wife crying on her uncle's breast, the condemned man
standing on the scaffold with the halter around his neck, his arms
strapped to his body, the black cap on his head, the sheriff at his side
with his hand on the drop, the clergyman in front of him with bare head
and his book in his hand.

'I am the resurrection and the life--'

I turned away. I could not listen; I could not look. I did not know
whither to go or what to do. Mechanically and without knowing it, I put
my eye to that strange instrument, and there was Peking and the Czar's
procession! The next moment I was leaning out of the window, gasping,
suffocating, trying to speak, but dumb from the very imminence of the
necessity of speaking. The preacher could speak, but I, who had such
need of words--'And may God have mercy upon your soul. Amen.'

The sheriff drew down the black cap, and laid his hand upon the lever. I
got my voice.

'Stop, for God's sake! The man is innocent. Come here and see Szczepanik
face to face!'

Hardly three minutes later the