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Updated: May 28, 2025
The prisoner richly deserved his sentence. Let him undergo it. "At the close of his career." Yes, for Kellson felt that he could no longer live. His limit of endurance had been reached. Life had for some years past been a sore burthen, and now he could carry it no longer. Had he not longed for a child for a son?
Rachel again burst into violent weeping, and swayed to and fro in her chair. For some time she could not speak, Kellson sat and looked at her, a vague feeling of uneasiness stirring in him. At length she became calmer, and sat still her hands pressed to her face. She stood up, looked fixedly at Kellson for a moment, and then fell un her knees before him.
Then the latter said "Good night" and left. Kellson remained sitting on the rustic seat, feeling in a better frame of mind. The Moon rose over the big mountain in front of the house and distant about five miles. The soft moonlight made the landscape wonderfully beautiful. The whole mountain was draped in snow-while, clinging mist, except the very summit, over which the Moon was hanging.
Kellson stooped, lifted her from the ground, and placed her in the chair. He was struck by her extreme lightness. "Rachel," he said, "I never knew of this. What can I say to you now but, 'God help us both or all three of us. I can give you no hope, but come and see me to-morrow morning at the Office." This seemed to comfort her.
The gate and the fence were new, but the verandah, the door and the windows, as in the case of the hotel, were the same he had known in the old days. He opened the door and walked in, his footsteps sounding hollow in the empty house. Kellson stood in the passage. He had left the front door wide open so as to admit the light. The air of the empty house seemed dense with the essence of the past.
It was characteristic of Kellson that the prisoner's prepossessing appearance had the involuntary effect of making the sentence more severe, or rather, perhaps, of making the magistrate more stern in his estimate of the criminality.
"Good evening," replied Kellson. "What do you want?" "I beg your pardon. Sir, coming at this time to trouble you. I only came because I am in great grief. But do you not know me?" "No," said Kellson, after scanning her features carefully; "I do not remember you. What is your name?" "I am Rachel, sir." "Rachel," he said, sharply; "not Rachel Arends?"
Guilt being fully admitted by the prisoner, all Kellson had to do as magistrate was to read over the depositions and pass sentence.
His wife well he shrewdly suspected that she would be glad of her freedom. He had no child Oh, God! Yes he had. Disgrace to his wife and to his other relations. Ah! here came in the beauty of his plan. Suicide would never be suspected. Kellson went into the bedroom and opened his portmanteau.
He could not, however, endure the sensations which he experienced, so he hurried back to his room. The transfiguring moonlight had conjured up the ghost of his youth, and it mocked and gibed at him cruelly. Kellson was a bad sleeper, but he went to bed early so as to rest his weary limbs.
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