WORLD TO BLAME
 
 
 BSTRAND SMITH? 
 
 140 PACIFIC AVEMU8 
 CAUP.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME.
 
 BSRTRAND SMITH-- 
 
 ACRES rih SOOKS 
 
 14 PACIFIC AVENUM 
 LON BEACH. CAUP.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 BY 
 
 WALDORF H. PHILLIPS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "Ax THB MISKS," "WHAT DO You THINK OF HIM?" ETC., ETC., ETC. 
 
 '-Ite 
 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 
 
 624, 626 & 628 MARKET STREET. 
 
 1874. 
 
 7
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 
 
 WALDORF H. PHILLIPS, 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 > *% 
 
 3. FAGA.N ft SON, 
 BTEREOTYPiJRS, PHILAD'A.
 
 TO 
 
 GRATEFUL TO MY GOD, THAT 
 
 HE HAS BLESSED ME 
 
 WITH SUCH A 
 
 FATHER AND MOTHER. 
 
 2312471
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 LESLIE WYNDHAM 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE FIRST CURSE JEALOUSY 23 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE OTHER CURSE DRINK 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 FATHER AND SON 33 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MARY FARLY'S HOME ..;.... 37 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHAT THE MORNING BROUGHT 44 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 AFTER THE MURDER 48 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 IN THE TOMBS 60 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TRIED FOR HIS LIFE 67 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE BITTERNESS OF THE SOUL 78 
 
 zi
 
 Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 86 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 A BURGLAR 91 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE END OF A SAD LIFE 96 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 JAMES FARLY'S CONFESSION 106 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 SELF AND DUTY 121 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 "DUST THOU ART, TO DUST RETURNETH." . . .123 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 THE LION OF THE DAY 127 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 How CRIMINALS ARE MADE 135 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 ALICE , . . N 141 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 A CHANCE MEETING 146 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 CAUGHT 155 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 To THE WORLD . . 159
 
 THE 
 
 WORLD TO BLAME, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LESLIE WYNDHAM. 
 
 AT the age of thirty-five, Leslie Wyndham had 
 earned for himself a name and a moderate for- 
 tune. He was a fine-looking man, with eyes large 
 and black, which seemed to read your very thoughts 
 at a glance; hair of the same hue; the form of an 
 Apollo; a high, intellectual forehead, (though a high 
 forehead is not always a sign of intellectuality,) 
 and, altogether, of a very prepossessing appearance. 
 His manners were mild and winning, his mind well 
 stored with knowledge, firm and well balanced, and 
 himself cultivated, gentlemanly, courteous, and bril- 
 liant. 
 
 There was an indefinable something attractive about 
 him. Intellect shone in his eyes. He thought quickly 
 and deeply, but not over-hastily, weighing well this 
 and that. 
 
 He was upright; his temper passionate, but under 
 
 his control; his sympathy easily aroused; in short, a 
 
 man who had seen a great deal of the good and bad of 
 
 this world ; one acquainted with its curious ways and 
 
 2 13
 
 14 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 passions ; a man who, though yet young, had had a 
 vast experience. 
 
 And here we may be allowed to remark, that age 
 does not necessarily bring with it either wisdom or ex- 
 perience. One may pass through multitudes of vicissi- 
 tudes, and yet, really, have no experience. 
 
 The boy of fifteen may have more experience, and 
 greater knowledge of the world and its passions, than 
 the man of sixty, though he, personally, has seen noth- 
 ing of life, while the man has passed through all its 
 troubles, griefs, and joys. 
 
 It is observation which is experience. 
 
 The boy of fifteen, who observes narrowly the mys- 
 terious and crazy drama of life going on around him, 
 has more true experience than the man of sixty, who 
 has come in contact with the rough and pleasant sides 
 of life, who has passed through the giddy whirlpool 
 without observing what was taking place about him. 
 
 Observation, we repeat, is really experience. 
 
 By profession, Leslie Wyndham was a journalist. 
 He was the author of several celebrated works. He 
 had been the War Correspondent, during the Crimean 
 War, of one of the best and most influential daily 
 papers published in Gotham, and at the age of thirty- 
 five, was one of its strongest pillars. 
 
 He was a widower. He had, as he thought all men 
 should do, married young, and his wife had died in 
 giving birth to his only child, a smart boy of sixteen 
 years, who lived with his mother's relatives in the Bay 
 State. Once a month regularly, Leslie Wyndham met 
 his son and passed two or three days with him ; and 
 then came an affectionate parting on both sides.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 15 
 
 "Wyndham had no settled residence, but when in 
 New York, he resided with a Mrs. Crosswell. 
 
 Mrs. Crosswell was a widow, and the virtues of the 
 " late departed " were always before her eyes. She 
 kept a private boarding-house, though not for the sake 
 of " company," merely. 
 
 Here he found a field for character-study. There 
 was Mr. Suiggins, who, figuratively speaking, always 
 turned up his nose at the table, while his wife eyed 
 everything suspiciously; Mr. Fine, who imagined 
 himselfyme-r and better than any one else, (his board 
 bill was not punctually settled;) the duplex Air. Smith, 
 Christian name John, and others. 
 
 It was at Mrs. Crosswell's that Leslie Wyndham 
 met the woman who was to have such an influence on 
 his after life. He had been there some two successive 
 months, before, in answer to an advertisement, a gen- 
 tleman applied for board and lodging for himself and 
 wife. 
 
 " A newly-married couple," announced Mrs. Cross- 
 well, confidentially, at the table. 
 
 "When are they coming?" asked a rather wild 
 young lady. 
 
 " To-morrow morning, Mrs. Pentham," replied the 
 landlady. 
 
 "Oh, my!" with a sigh, "I suppose we'll have to 
 be on our good behavior for a week ! " said Mrs. Peii- 
 tham, demurely. 
 
 Mrs. Pentham was the life of Mrs. Crosswell's house. 
 
 " Such a wild, lively, full-of-spirits, enchanting mar- 
 ried woman, I never did see," the landlady had re- 
 marked to Leslie Wyndhara.
 
 16 THE WOULD TO BLAME. 
 
 " A little too wild for a married woman," thought 
 Mr. Wyndham, after a few days' observance of her. 
 
 Leslie Wyndham met the newly-married couple at 
 the dinner-table the following evening, and was duly 
 introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Farly. 
 
 Mr. Farly was a man of prepossessing appearance, 
 well educated, and well versed on all the topics of the 
 day ; by occupation, a stock broker. 
 
 Mrs. Farly was about eighteen years of age, with 
 deep black eyes, handsome features, and slender form ; 
 in short, a beautiful woman. Her conversation was 
 fascinating, attractive, and full of sound common 
 sense; a rather strange thing in a woman, especially 
 of her age. 
 
 Leslie Wyndham was a good judge of character, and 
 what he thought of Mrs. Farly and her husband, can 
 best be inferred from the following extracts from his 
 private diary : 
 
 "... A man of weak mind ; one who would easily 
 give way under the slightest misfortune, and seek 
 oblivion in drink. A man of strong and uncontrolled 
 passions. One who, persuaded that he had been 
 wronged, would rush blindly into crime, to be re- 
 venged. A bad temper ; easily influenced by others. 
 He has quarrelled with his wife already. Jealous. 
 In a bad business." 
 
 Mrs. Farly : 
 
 " A smart, intelligent woman, of great strength of 
 mind. Virtuous and innocent. Not as happy as she 
 seems. Thinks she loves her husband, but is not well 
 mated."
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 17 
 
 Leslie Wyndham occupied the adjoining room to 
 that of Mr. and Mrs. Farly. 
 
 Before a month had passed, he was on familiar terms 
 with the lady. For her husband he experienced a sort 
 of indefinable repugnance. 
 
 His opinion of the two remained unchanged. 
 
 And so six uneventful months winged their rapid 
 flight, and were lost in the depths of the ocean of 
 Time. But as they were the beginning of the eventual 
 days, we shall endeavor to review them in as few words 
 and short a space as possible. 
 
 The journalist's opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Farly, 
 the new boarders no longer, we have said remained 
 the same ; but the more he had seen of the lady, the 
 more he had been strongly reminded of his dead wife, 
 who had long been sleeping in her grave, but never 
 forgotten. He tried not to think of Mrs. Farly, when 
 he found that he began to feel an attachment for her. 
 She was a married woman, and he must not forget that 
 she could never be anything more to him than a friend. 
 But Leslie Wyndham was, after all, only human ; he 
 was possessed of the same passions and emotions as the 
 rest of us poor mortals. If Mrs. Farly could never 
 be anything to him, he could, nevertheless, and, what 
 is more, he did, love her. 
 
 He struggled with this passion as only a strong man 
 with upright feelings, can struggle. He knew very 
 well that it was a mad, wrong passion, but he could 
 not help it. He tried not to own even to himself that 
 he felt anything stronger than friendship for her ; yet, 
 he did. 
 
 He feared for her. Her husband was a man of 
 2* B
 
 18 THE WOULD TO BLAME. 
 
 strong passions, fierce and vindictive in his nature, 
 though that nature was inherently weak. Suppose 
 some reverse should overtake him? What was more 
 probable ? He was a stock broker ; he would become 
 a speculator, if he was not one already. 
 
 Speculation is like the serpent; it fascinates while it 
 destroys. 
 
 Leslie Wyndham could see that Mr. and Mrs. Farly's 
 were not temperaments suited to each other. 
 
 He loved her! He found it out in a very short 
 time. If he could not be to her anything but a friend, 
 he could watch over, and, if chance offered, aid her. 
 
 And how were the husband and wife getting along 
 together during these six months ? 
 
 She liked the journalist ; he did not. He was, we 
 have said, of a very jealous disposition. 
 
 For the first three months they were happy. Then, 
 alas, came little quarrels. Mary Farly could ill brook 
 her husband's domineering manner, his little petty 
 jealousies. She could not be his slave. If she spoke 
 to a gentleman for an hour, her husband talked to her 
 about it. He often spoke to her about Leslie Wynd- 
 ham ; he did not like to see her so much in his com- 
 pany. He could see nothing in a man like Wyndham, 
 however interesting Mrs. Farly might find him. 
 
 Such jealous dispositions as James Farly's, are not, 
 unfortunately, exceptional ; and a wife, it matters not 
 how good she may be, and especially if she was, like 
 Mary Farly, intellectual and high spirited, cannot 
 always refrain from speaking out her opinions of her 
 husband; cannot bear to be domineered over. 
 
 Between husband and wife there should exist perfect 
 love, harmony, and trust.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 19 
 
 It had not been a good match. Two such differ- 
 ently constituted persons could not well agree together. 
 
 They quarrelled ! This was the beginning: 
 
 Leslie Wyndhain had spent the evening at home. 
 They were all congregated in Mrs. Crosswell's sitting- 
 room, a favorite place of resort after the dinner was 
 over. 
 
 Mrs. Crosswell herself, Mr. Sniggins, lively Mrs. 
 Pentham, and James Farly, sat round the card-table 
 playing whist. 
 
 Leslie Wyndham, who did not, or but seldom, touch 
 cards, and Mrs. Farly sat apart talking and laughing 
 together. 
 
 A man like Wyndham could not fail to interest a 
 woman like Mrs. Farly. He spoke of literature, art, 
 music, and the drama, subjects peculiarly attractive 
 to her. 
 
 James Farly ever and anon cast a glance over at 
 them. He did not like to see them so conversant with 
 each other. 
 
 Mrs. Pentham rallied him on his play. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Farly, what are you doing ? You 're 
 playing awful ! You don't pay any attention at all to 
 the game ! Come, wake up ! Play right ! " 
 
 He murmured something. He was growing restless 
 and uneasy. His jealous disposition gave him little 
 peace. He longed to speak out, but he could not 
 before " everybody." But he was glad when the game 
 came to an end. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Farly, tired already ? What, ain't you 
 going to play another game? What ails you?" 
 
 " I can't play to-night," he replied ; " I don't feel
 
 20 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 like it. My mind wanders from the cards, and I 'd 
 rather not play. Besides, I have had a very busy day, 
 and feel tired out. Good-night, all. Ready, Mary?" 
 
 " In one minute, James." 
 
 " All right ; I 'm going up. Be up soon," he said, 
 and hastily left the room. 
 
 He felt that if he remained there much longer he 
 must speak out ; he could not control his passion. It 
 was gnawing at his very vitals. 
 
 "Oh," thought Mrs. Pentham, "he is jealous! 
 That 's right ! He 'd like that woman to be his slave ! 
 I 'd teach him if he was my husband ! I 'd flirt just 
 as much as I pleased ! " 
 
 . It was full half an hour before Mrs. Farly ascended 
 to her room. Her husband was seated in the arm- 
 chair before the fire, his head resting on his hand. 
 He had not recovered from his jealous fit ; he was 
 waiting for his wife to vent his anger. 
 
 " Well, James," she began. She was going to ask 
 him if he was ill, but he interrupted her. 
 
 " You Ve come up at last ! " 
 
 There was nothing in the words themselves, but it 
 was the tone, the manner in which they were spoken. 
 
 " What do you mean, James ? " she asked. 
 
 " I just wanted to know if you had finished your 
 interesting conversation with that puppy, Wyndham," 
 he said, sneeringly. 
 
 The words stung her to the quick, touched her pride, 
 and aroused her indignation. 
 
 " James Early," she cried, " you shall not insult Mr. 
 Wyndham and myself in that manner. I will not 
 listen to it."
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 21 
 
 " ' Mr. Wynclham and myself/ " he repeated, mock- 
 ingly. " That 's right ! I was only made to support 
 you while you enjoyed yourself in other men's com- 
 pany ! / was only made to trouble, to toil, to wear 
 my life out, that you might amuse yourself! / " 
 
 The hot blood rushed to her face, and suffused her 
 cheeks. Her eyes flashed with indignation, as she cut 
 him short. 
 
 " Stop ! " she cried. " You shall not insult me in 
 this manner ! You shall not ! " 
 
 His passion was fast getting the better of him. 
 
 " And I will not have you talk to that man ! " he 
 said, passionately. " I expressly forbid you to ! I 
 will not stand it, I tell you ! You must behave your- 
 self as my wife should ! You shall not disgrace my 
 name ! " 
 
 Again the hot blood rushed to her face. If she had 
 any bad quality, it was pride. 
 
 She spoke angrily. 
 
 " I will talk to whom I please, and when I please," 
 she said. " I am not your slave, Mr. Farly, to be 
 commanded what to do, and what not to do ! I will 
 not be insulted by my husband ! You must treat me 
 with proper respect, or I will not speak to you ! I 
 wish I had never seen you ! Oh, why, why did I 
 marry you?" 
 
 " Beware ! " he cried, threateningly, half rising from 
 the chair. 
 
 " That 's right, coward that you are ! Threaten me, 
 strike me, like the man that you are ! I loathe you ! 
 I despise you, with your mean little jealousies ! " 
 
 She repented the words the minute she had spoken 
 them.
 
 22 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 He buried his face in his hands, with a look no pen 
 can picture ! One little word then, would have made 
 love reign again. 
 
 But, no ! She would not speak that word. He, her 
 husband, placed no faith, no trust in her. It was all 
 his fault, she argued. 
 
 Ah ! they were both in fault ; but pride, cursed 
 pride, would not allow them to acknowledge it. 
 
 " Enough ! " he said, chokingly. " We know each 
 other now. In public, we must appear " 
 
 He could not say the word. It stuck in his throat. 
 
 She loathed him ! 
 
 He arose. He was on fire. There was murder at 
 his heart. 
 
 He left the room, hurriedly. He must go out into 
 the fresh air where he could breathe. 
 
 When he had gone, she fell into a chair and wept. 
 
 " Why did he not speak ? " she moaned. 
 
 Each had been waiting for the other to speak that 
 one word, and it had remained unsaid. 
 
 She went to bed, but not to sleep. 
 
 It was very late when he came in, and cast himself, 
 without undressing, on the sofa. 
 
 There was little rest for either of them thai, night, 
 for he, too, was uneasy and dissatisfied with himself.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 23 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FIEST CURSE JEALOUSY. 
 
 THIS quarrel ended, of course, in a reconciliation ; 
 but it left its effects. After this, they both felt 
 that the dream had ended ; that they could not be to 
 each other again, what they had been. 
 
 Frequently, angry words passed between them. Mr. 
 Farly spent his evenings out; Leslie Wyndham at home. 
 
 The journalist thought that he should go away from 
 this house, but he could not. He saw that there had 
 been a quarrel between the husband and wife ; he, alone, 
 noted the little differences in them, and instinctively 
 felt that he was the cause of the change. 
 
 Mrs. Farly was becoming dearer to him. In the 
 absence of her husband, she was almost constantly in 
 his company. 
 
 And so the six months had passed. 
 
 We have said that James Farly spent his evenings 
 away from his home. 
 
 He considered himself a misused man. He looked 
 on Leslie Wyndham as the cause of the estrangement 
 between him and his wife, and he hated the journalist. 
 
 Such men as James Farly, when in his position, or 
 similar ones, take to drink. 
 
 James Farly lingered around hotels and bar-rooms. 
 He essayed to drown his thoughts in fiery liquor, but 
 he had not, as yet, become so debased as to go to his 
 home in a state of intoxication.
 
 24 THE WORLD TO BLAME." 
 
 There were times when he felt ashamed of himself. 
 
 One night, or, rather, evening, he arrived home, tired, 
 sullen, and morose. 
 
 There had been a great agitation in the market that 
 day, and every one conversant with stocks, foresaw a 
 panic. 
 
 He did not speak to any one, nor appear at the din- 
 ner-table ; his wife excused him. 
 
 She questioned him as to what was the matter with 
 him. She did not like to see him in his present state 
 of mind. 
 
 He did not answer her, except by a sharp, " Don't 
 bother me! I have enough to trouble me, without 
 you annoying me." 
 
 She did not question him further. 
 
 He went out early, and it was late when he returned. 
 He had been imbibing heavily, and, though she was 
 awake in bed when he came into the room, she pre- 
 tended to be asleep. 
 
 He did not speak, but muttered to himself. She 
 could smell the liquor in his breath. It disgusted and 
 sickened her. 
 
 He fell asleep in the arm-chair, and his deep, hard 
 breathing, alone broke the silence. 
 
 She could not sleep. Need we say it? She was 
 afraid of him in his present state. Her pillow was 
 bedewed with hot, scalding tears. 
 
 Oh ! what misery to be tied for life to such a man ! 
 She compared him with Leslie Wyndham, to the latter's 
 great advantage. 
 
 Towards morning, she fell into a doze, and when she 
 awoke, he had already left the house.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 25 
 
 How she passed the day can be imagined. She 
 moved about mechanically, but her thoughts were far 
 away from herself. She remained at home, restless 
 and heavy-hearted. 
 
 It was a very busy day in the stock market. There 
 was a panic. Stocks rose rapidly, which before had 
 sold at less than par, and those which had been con- 
 sidered of the greatest value, and the most secure for 
 investment, suddenly declined. 
 
 Men ran around wild, distracted, trying to cover 
 their losses, and keep a firm footing. Such an exciting 
 day had never been witnessed in the Stock Exchange. 
 
 James Farly came home late, after the dinner hour, 
 and hurried to his room, looking entirely demented. 
 
 His wife was in the room, but for some minutes he 
 said not a word to her, but, casting himself recklessly 
 into a chair, buried his face in his hands, and for a long 
 time sat in this attitude of dejection, staring ruin in 
 the face. 
 
 He was deliberating how to break the terrible news 
 to her. His jealousy was, for the time being, forgotten. 
 
 Suddenly, he raised his head and spoke. 
 
 " Mary, I have something to tell you." 
 
 She came to his side, and said gently : 
 
 " What is it ? You are troubled." 
 
 " I am afraid you cannot bear up under it," he said. 
 " It has been a very busy and exciting day. At one 
 time I thought I would have gone crazy. You know," 
 (she did not know,) " I have dabbled considerably in 
 stocks lately. The market has greatly fallen to-day, 
 and unless there is a change, we are " 
 
 " Ruined ! " she said, calmly.
 
 26 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 " Ruined ! " he repeated. 
 ******* 
 
 They passed the evening in their own room. For 
 the first time in a long while, James Farly remained 
 at home. 
 
 What they said can better be imagined than de- 
 scribed. 
 
 It is better never to have wealth, than to have it and 
 lose it. 
 
 The following morning, Farly was at his office very 
 early, and his wife passed the day in nervous expecta- 
 tion and anxiety. 
 
 Leslie Wyndham reached his home at five o'clock 
 that afternoon, and stopped at her room door to con- 
 verse with her. 
 
 She sat in the rocking-chair by the window. 
 
 In his character of journalist it had been Leslie 
 Wyndham's duty to record the events of the Wall 
 street panic, and among the list of failures, he had that 
 day been compelled to place the name of 
 
 " James Farly" 
 
 He refrained carefully from mentioning the subject 
 at all, and she, though wishing, yet not daring to, did 
 not question him in regard to it. 
 
 While thus engaged in trivial conversation, the hall 
 door opened and closed, and a man's heavy footstep 
 ascended the stairs. 
 
 This man was James Farly. 
 
 His head was bent, and he half crazed by the heavy 
 blow which had fallen on him that day. 
 
 As he reached his room door, his eyes fell on Leslie
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 27 
 
 Wyndham, an angry scowl convulsed his features, and 
 he walked into the room with an unsteady step, trem- 
 bling with passion, and, without a word, slammed the 
 door to in the journalist's face. 
 
 Wyndham paid no attention to the rude action. He 
 knew full well the opinion James Farly had of him ; 
 so he went into his own apartment, adjoining theirs. 
 
 He could hear their voices in angry dispute, and 
 judged of the scene passing in their room. 
 
 Once or twice he heard his own name mentioned, 
 and before his eye he saw a jealous, half-crazed, torn- 
 with-passion man, and a gentle, though proud and 
 spirited woman. 
 
 He longed to go into her room and take her part, 
 but his good sense restrained him from obeying the 
 impulse. 
 
 He passed the evening in his own apartment, and 
 Mary Farly remained up stairs, also. 
 
 Her husband had left her in anger, and, fearing for 
 his safety, she remained up waiting for him. 
 
 The weary hours passed. The clock on the mantel 
 struck the hour of one, when she heard him open the 
 house door. 
 
 With the exception of Mary Farly and Leslie Wynd- 
 ham, the house was wrapped in slumber. 
 
 He came staggering up the stairs, the fumes of his 
 liquor-laden breath pervading the hall and stairway. 
 He staggered into the room in a beastly state of in- 
 toxication. 
 
 Leslie Wyndham heard him, and listened intently. 
 
 Mary Farly shuddered with inexpressible loathing, 
 as she saw her husband.
 
 28 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 "Up, eh? (hie,)" he said loudly. 
 
 " 'Sh ! You '11 wake the whole house up, if you 
 talk so loud," she said in a low tone. 
 
 " And who cares if I do ? " he hiccoughed. 
 
 " I do ! " she said. " If you have lost all respect 
 for yourself, and all your sense of shame, I have not. 
 I do not care that my husband should be seen in his 
 present condition." 
 
 " And whose fault is it, eh ? " 
 
 " Your own." 
 
 " You lie ! woman. It is yours, and your para- 
 mour's, Wyndham ! " 
 
 The hot blood leapt wildly through her veins ; her 
 bosom heaved with indignation, and her whole frame 
 shook with anger, and a sense of gross injustice. But 
 she controlled her passion by a mighty eifort, and said 
 calmly : 
 
 " James Farly, you know not what you say. Were 
 you sober, I would make you take those words back ; 
 as it is " 
 
 " It 's the truth, eh ? " he hiccoughed, angrily. 
 
 "You LIE!" 
 
 She could not keep the words back. They burst 
 from her pale lips spontaneously. 
 
 " What ! " he cried. " How dare you say that to 
 me?" 
 
 He arose, sobered, from the chair he had fallen into, 
 as he spoke. 
 
 Leslie Wyndham could not restrain himself any 
 longer. He had heard every word they had spoken. 
 
 He went out of his room, and opened and closed 
 their door quietly, without their noticing him.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 29 
 
 James Farly stood over his wife with uplifted arm, 
 and clenched fist, ready to strike her. 
 
 All his sense of manliness rebelled at the sight, and 
 with a spring, the journalist rushed between the two, 
 and caught the descending arm. 
 
 "Coivard!" he said, and there was a world of in- 
 tense loathing in the one word. 
 
 In an instant, James Farly became perfectly sober. 
 
 Again this man had come between him and his wife ! 
 ******* 
 
 Neither of the trio slept that night. 
 
 They met the next morning at the breakfast-table, 
 but not a word passed between them. 
 
 That was the last time they ever met together in 
 Mrs. Crosswell's house. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Farly had come there happy; they 
 left there that day, miserable. 
 
 What was to be the end ? 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE OTHER CUESE DRINK. 
 
 WHAT was to be the end ? What was the end ? 
 It can be told in a few words, if the reader has 
 not already guessed it. 
 
 James Farly's descent was very rapid. The first 
 false step, and the others quickly follow. It is yery 
 easy to descend the ladder. 
 3*
 
 30 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 His wife still remained with him, though her load 
 seemed greater than she could bear. She worked hard 
 with her needle for the little pittance that supported 
 her. 
 
 Oh, it is bitter for one accustomed to the luxuries 
 of life to live in poverty ! 
 
 With the exception of Leslie Wyndham, all her 
 friends (?) had deserted her. 
 
 James Farly, now that he had lost his fortune, had 
 no friends but those he made in the bar-room. All 
 his earnings went for drink. 
 
 He came home, every night, to their little garret, in 
 the same beastly state of intoxication. 
 
 This could not last long. His wife had not entirely 
 ceased to love him, but she could not bear to live with 
 him in his present condition. 
 
 For two nights, in company with the journalist, she 
 followed him, and saw him, with what feelings God 
 alone knew, enter a notorious house of prostitution. 
 
 It was then that Leslie Wyndham begged her to 
 procure a divorce. He would aid her. It was not 
 right that she should be compelled to live with a man 
 like the one she called her husband. 
 
 She could procure a divorce ; and, as she had de- 
 termined not to accept of any charity, but to work for 
 her living, he would secure her a nice, quiet place as 
 governess in a family of his acquaintance, who resided 
 in the country, where she could live in peace. 
 
 What could be the result ? 
 
 " Put yourself in her place." 
 
 On one side was a life of poverty, with a drunkard 
 for a husband. On the other haudj a good home was
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 31 
 
 offered her by a man whom she knew loved her, and 
 whom she liked and admired. 
 
 Oh, it was a hard and bitter struggle ! 
 
 It took her a long time to decide, though the life 
 she was leading was unbearable. 
 
 Rum and liquor have worked more ruin and done 
 more harm than all the armies the world ever saw. 
 
 Rum ! the curse of civilization ; the destroyer of the 
 body and the mind; the serpent of the home circle; the 
 agent of the devil ! 
 
 The cause of nine-tenths of the murders, and divorces, 
 and tragedies daily taking place, can be traced to this 
 satanic agent. 
 
 Curse upon curse have been heaped upon its head, 
 and still it goes on destroying whatever it touches, 
 laying its blighting hand upon father, brother, and 
 husband; dealing in death in its most agonizing form; 
 leaving destruction and desolation along its triumphant 
 way; striking at the very roots of earthly happiness; 
 tempting and alluring with false hopes and promises; 
 consoling while destroying, the worst enemy of man- 
 kind, the very spirit of HELL on earth ! 
 * * * # * * * 
 
 James Farly came home one night, in his usual 
 beastly state of intoxication. 
 
 No wife awaited him ; no one welcomed him. 
 
 He waited and waited, after sleeping off his drunk- 
 enness. 
 
 He searched for the woman he called wife. 
 
 Without avail ! 
 
 Only a short note on the rickety table, directed in a 
 trembling hand to him, rewarded his search.
 
 32 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 It was very, very short. All it said was : 
 
 Farewell! God forgive me and bless and reform 
 you ! Farewell ! MARY. 
 
 He read it over a dozen times. He could not under- 
 stand it. 
 
 For some time after its full meaning burst upon his 
 mind in all its terrible significance, he sat perfectly 
 motionless. 
 
 There was a dull feeling at his heart; his brain 
 whirled, and a terrible sense of loneliness came over 
 him. 
 
 There he sat, as motionless as a statue, benumbed 
 and half-paralyzed under this last fearful blow; under 
 this last ruin, which he, himself, had erected with his 
 own hands, and which had tumbled over his head, sat 
 in mute anguish and looked upon the ruin, the ruin 
 which rum and jealousy had caused. 
 
 Oh ! these two are mighty powerful and destructive 
 agents singly ! But now they had been combined ! 
 They had worked hard together for a human soul, and 
 conquered ! 
 
 That soul was theirs !
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FATHER AND SON. 
 
 IN one of the most fashionable and populous streets 
 in the Empire City, there stood a magnificent four- 
 story-brown stone house. Imposing as its exterior 
 undoubtedly was, its interior was no less luxurious 
 and beautiful. 
 
 And this large and magnificent mansion, with all 
 its wealth of furniture, pictures, etc., was occupied by 
 two men solely, if we except the five servants who 
 took care of it. 
 
 These two men were Leslie "Wyndham and his son 
 Frederick. 
 
 During these last six years, Leslie Wyndham had 
 amassed wealth very rapidly ; everything he touched 
 seemed to turn into gold. 
 
 He had also been married. It was on the occasion 
 of his second marriage that he had purchased the fine 
 residence we have mentioned, and, having sent for his 
 son, who at that time was in his nineteenth year, set- 
 tled down into private life, bestowing charity wherever 
 he thought it deserving, and earning the name of a 
 true philanthropist. 
 
 But again he had the misfortune to lose his wife, 
 three years before we re-introduce him to your notice. 
 
 He is sitting in his room, by the side of an elegant 
 marble table, on which stands a drop light, vainly 
 endeavoring to read the evening paper. His thoughts 
 
 C
 
 34 THE WOKLD TO BLAME. 
 
 are not on the news of the day, but on one dear, very 
 dear to him ; one to whom he feels he must soon ad- 
 dress words of reproach, his son. 
 
 It was with only such feelings and emotions as a 
 true father, a father who loved his son as Leslie 
 Wyndham loved his, can know, that he had watched 
 the dissipated life Frederick had been leading. 
 
 Out every night until late in the morning, spending 
 money freely and not in the best of ways, it was no 
 wonder that Frederick Wyndham's name was fre- 
 quently mentioned in connection with reports that, to 
 say the least, did not do him much credit. 
 
 In fact, the young man seemed to be undoubtedly 
 " fast," in the general acceptation of that term ; and 
 though he loved his father truly and devotedly, still 
 the many counsels, and warnings, and lectures, as he 
 was wont to call them, which that father had given 
 him, were all apparently unheeded, for Frederick had 
 got into bad company. 
 
 He was known to gamblers and licentiates ; he as- 
 sociated with " sports," who flattered and praised him, 
 who called him a jolly good fellow, and a " regular 
 brick, you bet ; " who tickled his vanity, and would 
 continue to do so as long as he had the wherewithal to 
 spend for their amusement. 
 
 He had got into bad company whom he found it 
 very hard to shake off. They clung to him like leeches, 
 and he was too afraid of their ridicule to tell them 
 what the "Governor" said. 
 
 When a man is ashamed and afraid of the ridicule 
 of those who feed upon his generosity, the natural con- 
 clusion would seem to be that he has fallen pretty low.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 35 
 
 So, when a servant told him that his father wished 
 to see him before he left the house, Frederick knew 
 what was coming, and prepared himself for another 
 " lecture." 
 
 Leslie Wyndham was pacing up and down his room 
 with unsteady steps, when his son entered. He bade 
 him be seated, and, seating himself, for some minutes 
 remained silent, while the young man, with an inward 
 feeling of unquiet and unrest, thought, " Why don't 
 he speak and be done with it?" 
 
 Frederick was a very fine-looking young man ; but 
 the marks of dissipation were engraven on his face, and 
 more especially around his eyes. 
 
 The feelings which agitated Leslie Wyndham can- 
 not be described ; it pained him greatly to speak 
 harshly to his son. 
 
 Ah ! they who envied him little thought that he 
 could be, and was, very unhappy. 
 
 It was the son who opened the conversation, though 
 not without a guilty twinge of conscience at the part 
 he was playing. 
 
 "John told me you wished to see me," he said. 
 "What do you want of me, father?" 
 
 " Frederick," said his father, solemnly, striving to 
 hide his emotion, " cannot you guess what I wish of 
 you?" 
 
 The young man moved uneasily in his chair. 
 
 " Frederick, you are young and inexperienced, and 
 still you do not heed my counsels and my advice. 
 Believe me, my son, for, though you were as old as 
 Methuselah, you would still be my son, it is as 
 painful for me to be compelled to reproach you, as it
 
 36 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 possibly can be for you to listen to me. Take my 
 advice, the advice of one who has passed through 
 the giddy whirlpool and maelstrom of life, Frederick. 
 Marry, and settle down; give up the life you are lead- 
 ing, for it can only end in your ruin." 
 
 His voice trembled, and tears were in his ejtes, which 
 he could not suppress. 
 
 "Father," answered the son, "you know I would 
 not do anything wrong." 
 
 "No, no, my son, I believe you; not intentionally. 
 But our passions oft get the better of us. Oh, Fred- 
 erick, Frederick, you would not embitter my old age, 
 and make my path to the grave a path of thorns ! " 
 
 He gave way ; broke down completely beneath his 
 emotion. 
 
 Silence, broken alone by his sobs, reigned for a few 
 moments. 
 
 Leslie Wyndham calmed himself, and continued : 
 
 "You are about to go out again, Frederick. Re- 
 main home for my sake, my son ; remain home, I beg 
 of you. Oh, if you try, only try once to break away 
 from the fascination of smiling pleasures, which con- 
 ceal in their gaudy exterior their hidden blackness, 
 you will soon rejoice that you have followed my ad- 
 vice; you will learn to love home as the dearest, 
 sweetest spot on earth, where true happiness can only 
 be found. There is no place like a true home, my son. 
 Oh, that we should be so disregardless of it ! Few 
 people know what it is to have a true home. No one 
 can fully appreciate its blessings. Then do not go out, 
 my son, but stay and pass the night with me." 
 
 Ah ! could he have only foreseen a little way ahead of
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 37 
 
 him ; could he have seen the misery, the anguish of 
 mind his answer was to cause him, he would not have 
 said as he did say : 
 
 " I have an important engagement to-night, father, 
 which I cannot break. After to-night I promise you 
 faithfully and honestly, father, to follow your counsel, 
 for I know you love me, though I am so unworthy of 
 your love. I have been ungrateful and blind, but I 
 shall be so no longer." 
 
 And so he went out. Had he remained at home 
 there might have been no occasion to write this sad 
 history. 
 
 And Leslie Wyndham was satisfied and contented. 
 He believed his son would do as he had promised 
 him " after to-night." 
 
 We are so blind, O God, in our present security ! 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 MARY FARLY'S HOME. 
 
 AND now it becomes necessary .that we take a cur- 
 sory glance at Mary Farly. 
 
 In the home of Mr. and Mrs. Smithson, the friends 
 of Leslie Wyndham, where he had procured her a 
 situation as governess, she was made as happy and 
 comfortable as it was possible for her to be, with the 
 shadow of her past life ever before her eyes. 
 
 Leslie Wyndham had confided to his friend, Smith - 
 4
 
 38 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 son, the history of Mary Farly's life so far as he knew 
 it, and so, though nominally governess, she was treated 
 like one of the family ; and had it not been for the 
 bitter memories of the past, the unhappy past, which 
 could not be blotted out, she might have been perfectly 
 contented. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Smithson were plain, unpretentious 
 
 people. They resided in M , a country town not 
 
 very far from New York. 
 
 The house was a fine country residence, surrounded 
 by spacious and elegantly laid out grounds, and ivy 
 and evergreens clambered up its walls. 
 
 Their married life had been very happy, and at the 
 time Mary Farly first entered their household, their 
 family consisted of a girl and boy, aged respectively 
 eleven and nine. 
 
 Mary Farly found her charges very easy to manage, 
 and apt to learn, so that her work, if such it might be 
 called, was light. 
 
 And so the six years had passed, with an occasional 
 visit from Leslie Wyudham, without any special im- 
 portant events. 
 
 And though the heir and daughter of the house had 
 grown up, still Mary Farly, at the request of the entire 
 family, remained, and was made to feel that she was 
 not dependent. Otherwise she assuredly would have 
 left them, for, though pride and poverty do not well 
 agree together, and never did or will, yet poor people 
 are apt to be proud as well as the rich, for they, too, 
 are only human. 
 ******* 
 
 Directly opposite Leslie Wyudham's residence, there
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 39 
 
 stood a small brick house, which, until within one 
 month previous to the time of the commencement of 
 the second part of this history, had been entirely un- 
 inhabited so far as Leslie Wyndham could remember 
 in regard to it. 
 
 He had often noticed this house standing in one of 
 the most populous and fashionable streets in the city, 
 with its time-worn shutters always closed, and its door 
 never opened with a great deal of curiosity. To him 
 it was a monument of man's foolish superstition and 
 prejudice, and he never could quite understand why 
 people were afraid to live in it. 
 
 In fact, a murder had been committed in that house 
 some years before. There were whispers of a " ghost 
 in ghastly white, stained with blood," which walked 
 the place, but which no one would ever swear to have 
 seen except in their own morbid imaginations, and of 
 unearthly and hollow voices that made the blood 
 curdle in one's veins, and ringing of bells being heard 
 at certain hours of the night when all respectable 
 people, save the police, were supposed to be in the 
 arms of the strictly democratic Morpheus. 
 
 To be sure these were only rumors; for, though 
 you were told these things in the most positive manner, 
 no one was ready to swear to the truth of them. But 
 they had the effect, however, of frightening off pur- 
 chasers and tenants, and the owner found his property, 
 which he himself would not inhabit, a burden on his 
 hands, and one, too, that he had to pay for ; for though 
 the house was haunted, taxes had to be paid all the 
 same. So, when an offer was made to rent the house 
 for a couple of months, he very gladly accepted it.
 
 40 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 Indeed, he would have allowed any one to have lived 
 in it rent-free, could he have found a responsible party 
 willing to do so, if merely to clear it from the suspicion 
 of being haunted, and to prove to the outside world 
 that there was no more danger in it than in any other 
 house. 
 
 And so it came to pass that suddenly painters ap- 
 peared upon the scene, the shutters were taken down, 
 and new ones put up, and a general air of brightness 
 surrounded the old deserted mansion. 
 
 The gossips began to talk and wonder who the peo- 
 ple were who had hired the place, and the neighbors 
 congratulated themselves on the occupancy of the 
 haunted house. 
 
 At last the gossips were set at rest. They found out 
 that the people who had hired this house were two 
 middle-aged, respectable men bachelors who were 
 tired of boarding-houses and hotels, and who intended 
 to keep bachelors' hall, " all by themselves." 
 
 Their names were Thomas Castle and Philip Marton, 
 and rumor (fickle jade !) had it that they were immensely 
 wealthy, and moved in the first circles ; also that Philip 
 Marton had all to say, or, in other words, that Castle 
 was the slave of Marten's will. 
 
 Undoubtedly they proved quiet neighbors ; no one 
 saw them leave or enter the house ; they seemed to have 
 no business to attend to, and they made no acquaint- 
 ances, and, after the usual nine days' wonder had 
 elapsed, no one thought or troubled themselves about 
 these two men. 
 
 The scene about to be related took place a week 
 previous to the night when Leslie Wyndham and his 
 son had the conversation before recorded.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 41 
 
 The two gentlemen, Philip Marton and Thomas 
 Castle, sat in the back extension-room, on the parlor 
 floor of the haunted house. A cheerful fire burned in 
 the grate, and on the small table by which they sat, 
 facing each other, and smoking, was a decanter and 
 two glasses. A small diagram was also on it before 
 Marton. 
 
 It was observable that Castle drank copiously of the 
 wine, while his companion scarcely touched his glass. 
 
 They were engaged in conversation. 
 
 " It was a lucky day for you when you met me," 
 Marton was saying. 
 
 " And for you, too," retorted Castle 
 
 " Well, never mind about that," returned the other. 
 " You have your revenge to satisfy, and I well, I 
 want money. This sort of thing is getting played out. 
 It 's all very nice, but it don't pay, and consequently 
 can't last long now. So we must to work soon, and 
 the sooner the better." 
 
 " But the danger," whispered the other, uneasily. 
 
 " What a cowardly chicken you are ! " exclaimed 
 Marton, in undisguised contempt. " The danger ? 
 Why, man, what do you mean? What danger? 
 There is absolutely none at all ! Just leave all that 
 to me. Do as I bid you, and everything will come 
 out all right. Depend upon me, and do as I tell you 
 nothing more or less." 
 
 " I do leave it all to you, Marton ; you know I do. 
 You beat the devil at plotting, and I confess there are 
 times when I wonder whether you really are a man " 
 
 " Or fiend," interrupted the other. " Thank you," 
 he continued, sarcastically ; " you are complimentary 
 4*
 
 42 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 very complimentary, indeed. But so long as you have 
 such a high opinion of me, and consent to follow my 
 directions, why, all right." 
 
 "You know well enough, Philip Marton, that I 
 would do anything to have my revenge, without " 
 
 " Risking your own safety." 
 
 "Revenge! Revenge! Revenge! By day I think 
 of it, and night after night my dreams are all of 
 vengeance ! Revenge on the man who blasted my 
 happiness, and ruined my life, and made me the des- 
 picable wretch that I am." 
 
 "And I am showing you the means by which you 
 can satisfy your passion ; I am opening a path for you. 
 And not only that not only do you satisfy your thirst 
 for vengeance, but you also get remunerated for all that 
 you have suffered. Now, first, as to the divorce. We 
 have seen the record of that. He did not obtain it 
 here ; he was too wise to try that. He took her where 
 a divorce could be procured with less trouble, and 
 little, if any, publicity. Then he married her secretly ; 
 I feel positive of that. That accounts for their not 
 living together, but he sees her. Wherever the devil 
 she is, I can't find out. If she has changed as much 
 in the last six years as you have, Castle, her own mo- 
 ther, if the worthy lady was living, would not be able 
 to recognize her. Being his wife, then, and he being 
 rich as Croesus, or any other man, at his death she will 
 come in for his stamps, etc." 
 
 " But if he has made a will ? " 
 
 " In favor of the other one, you mean ? What if 
 he has ? All his relatives are dead, with that excep- 
 tion. Now suppose, for instance, the other one " 
 
 " You don't mean "
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 43 
 
 " Never mind what I mean. Leave me to fix all 
 that. Philip Marton never fails in his plans. Once 
 she inherits his wealth, we can easily have the divorce 
 set aside, and then we are all right." 
 
 " But the danger." 
 
 " Still harping on the same old thing ! I tell you 
 there is none at all. Why, man, I have seen the same 
 case on trial, and what was the result ? Why, every- 
 body said he was right; public opinion was in his favor: 
 the press sustained him, and he came off quite a hero ! " 
 
 He laughed as he thought of that scene. He saw 
 it all before him. The court-room was the theater 
 where the comedy was played. He saw all the actors, 
 " in his mind's eye, Horatio : " the lawyers, the audi- 
 ence, the judge, jury, and the poor, persecuted, inno- 
 cent mur ! What a mockery of justice that was ! 
 
 It was no wonder that he laughed ; it was no wonder 
 that he did not fear after witnessing that exhibition of 
 a burlesque on law and justice ! Such a sight was not 
 calculated to inspire one with awe the sight of a 
 mean, cowardly, acknowledged assassin, being declared 
 innocent ! 
 
 And Castle could not but laugh too, after Marten's 
 recital of those facts. 
 
 " I am satisfied," he said, " you are right, Marton." 
 
 " Certainly I am. You see I have made myself ac- 
 quainted with all these things. Philip Marton does 
 not act unless he knows what he is doing. I think as 
 much of myself as you positively can of yourself, and 
 I am not so foolish as to put my precious head in the 
 lion's mouth recklessly! Not much! You should 
 know that by this time."
 
 44 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHAT THE MORNING BROUGHT. 
 
 IT was very late when Frederick Wyndham reached 
 his home, and opening the front door with his 
 latch key, ascended the stairs to his apartment, on the 
 third floor. 
 
 Coming from the cold winter's night into the warmth 
 of the heated house sent a thrill of pleasure through 
 him. 
 
 Remembering his conversation with the father who 
 loved him so well, and whom he also loved, Frederick 
 had not spent the night in drinking and gambling. 
 He had pledged himself to renounce these evils for- 
 ever ; and, as a beginning, he had gone to the home 
 of the rich and beautiful girl who loved him with all 
 the intensity of her young heart, and who was dearer 
 to him than all the world beside. 
 
 How beautiful and noble and pure she was in com- 
 parison with the women whom he met in his de- 
 baucheries, when rendered semi-unconscious by the 
 arch-fiend, Drink ! 
 
 He could not but feel ashamed of himself in her 
 presence ; he could not but wonder that one so pure 
 loved him, and he so unworthy of her heart's best 
 emotions. 
 
 The words of his father had taken root in his 
 mind before. He had been severing, as far as it was 
 possible, his connection with the impure beings who 
 had been the companions of his disgraceful orgies.
 
 THE WOKLD TO BLAME. 45 
 
 This was the engagement which could not be broken, 
 and of which he had spoken to his father. 
 
 The young man was pure and noble, and generous 
 by nature. It was his evil companionship which had 
 led him astray, and kept concealed the inherent good- 
 ness of his being. When his father first began talk- 
 ing to him of the course of life he had been leading, 
 his senses and his finer feelings began to awake and 
 struggle to free themselves from the unworthy chains 
 which had kept them so long in submission. 
 
 It was slow, up-hill work, and done in secret. No 
 one knew of the terrible battle that had been going on 
 within his breast, between passion and vice and virtue. 
 Virtue at last had triumphed. 
 
 He passed the evening in the company of the girl- 
 woman who loved him, and who had all along excused 
 his imprudencies in secret, and laid their blame to the 
 follies and snares which beset every young man's foot- 
 steps in a great city. 
 
 His father did not dream of his intimate acquaint- 
 ance with this girl ; did not know of the struggle 
 which had waged in his breast. He only heard the 
 evil reports, and Frederick said naught in contradic- 
 tion of them. He was waiting for a certain event to 
 happen before he made an announcement to his father, 
 which he knew would give him joy and comfort, and 
 make him happy as regarded his son's future. 
 
 The Dervilles were old friends of Leslie Wyndham's, 
 and Frederick had visited there very often ; but the 
 idea that May Derville was to be his son's wife had 
 never occurred to him. He had never thought of the 
 possibility of a match being made between the two,
 
 46 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 though nothing would have pleased him more than to 
 have seen his son married and settled in life. 
 
 May Derville was a girl in years, but a woman in 
 thought and feeling. She had knowledge far beyond 
 her age. She was the personification of a true woman, 
 and, though she had never confessed but to herself, her 
 love for Frederick Wyndham, the young man had read 
 her secret. Her heart spoke in the language of her 
 soft, pitying eyes. 
 
 That night Frederick had confessed his love to her. 
 He had told her all : his past life, hiding nothing, pal- 
 liating nothing, and his resolves for the future. And 
 she had accepted him, and they were engaged. 
 
 It was, therefore, with a light heart, beating with 
 joy and happiness, that Frederick Wyndham wended 
 his homeward way. 
 
 The light was out in the hall, but he knew his way 
 up to his rooms, as well in the darkness as in the 
 day. 
 
 As he passed his father's room, he saw that the gas, 
 as was Leslie Wyndham's custom, was burning low in 
 one corner, and the door was slightly ajar. 
 
 He had ascended the stairs very lightly, making as 
 little noise as possible, but as he passed the door, his 
 father called out : 
 
 " Is that you, Frederick ? " and he answered, 
 
 " Yes, sir. Good-night." 
 
 " I would like to be awoke early, Frederick." 
 
 " All right, sir. Good-night; good-night." 
 
 Then he went up to his own apartments. 
 
 The little clock in his room struck six, as he awoke. 
 It mattered not how late he retired, precisely at six
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 47 
 
 not from choice, but habit sleep left him. He did 
 not usually arise, however, but lay awake iu bed read- 
 ing. 
 
 It was a dull, cloudy morning, and the sky betokened 
 a coming snow-storm. 
 
 Recollecting the wish his father had expressed to 
 him of being awoke early, he jumped out of the com- 
 fortable bed, and, without dressing himself, proceeded 
 down the sta? > in his night-gown. 
 
 There is nothing so hard on a cold winter's morning 
 as getting out of bed. 
 
 Dressing and undressing are two plagues in cold 
 weather. 
 
 Leslie Wyndham slept in the hall-room, using the 
 large one as his sanctum sanctorum. A safe was in. 
 this large room, in which he kept his papers. 
 
 Frederick did not notice that the gas, which had 
 been burning when he came in, was now out. 
 
 The room was very dark, for the inside blinds were 
 closed and barred, so that the early light of the morn- 
 ing could not penetrate into the room. 
 
 Frederick passed through the sanctum, but as he 
 entered the hall-room, it felt to him as if something 
 sticky was on his feet. 
 
 He advanced a few steps toward the bed, and was 
 about to stretch forth his hand to touch his father, when 
 he stumbled and fell over something cold. 
 
 A chill went through his frame, and acting on the 
 impulse of the moment, he hastily arose, trembling 
 with fear, and opening the blind, let the dull morning 
 light into the room. 
 
 The sight that met his eyes, and thrilled him through
 
 48 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 and through with horror, haunted him night and day 
 while life lasted. 
 
 It were impossible to describe what he felt at that 
 moment ; but, with a shrill shriek, he rushed down the 
 stairs like a madman, and regardless of the fact that 
 he was in undress, opened the front door, and, standing 
 on the cold steps, upon which the snow-flakes had began 
 to fall, in his bloody feet and night gown, raised his 
 hands, which were also covered with blood, and shouted 
 wildly : 
 
 "MUEDEE! MUEDEE! POLICE! POLICE!" 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AFTEE THE MURDEE. 
 
 rPHE murder of Leslie Wyndham created great ex- 
 J- citement, because of its mysterious nature. 
 
 The news spread like wildfire. The newspapers put 
 out bulletins, and the sole topic of conversation for the 
 time being was of Leslie Wyndham. 
 
 Who was guilty? His son had been the last one 
 known to enter the house; he had bade his father 
 good-night, and been answered. The servants had all 
 retired, and though suspicion for a time rested on one 
 of them a man it was quickly cleared up, and the 
 mystery still remained unravelled. 
 
 What was the motive ? Robbery ? The safe was 
 open, and the papers had been handled and tossed
 
 THEWORLDTOBLAME. 49 
 
 about recklessly, but no money had apparently been 
 taken, for there was money in it. Was it likely that 
 robbers would look at the papers and not take the 
 gold that was before their eyes ? No ! that was im- 
 possible ! 
 
 And where are we safe, if not in our own houses ? 
 it was asked. If a man like Leslie Wyndham could 
 be murdered in his own house, where others were sleep- 
 ing, and the murderer escape without leaving a trace 
 behind him by which he could be discovered, who 
 could call their lives their own ? 
 
 No sound had been heard during the night by any 
 of the servants, or the murdered man's son, who slept 
 directly above him. They all swore positively to this j 
 and yet there were signs and evidences of a severe and 
 bloody struggle having taken place. Must not the 
 murderer's clothes have become stained with the blood 
 of his victim? 
 
 The mystery was as impenetrable to mortal eyes as 
 the heavens. 
 
 The murderer had done his work well, whoever he 
 was. He had come and done his dastardly deed silently, 
 and silently departed. The secret was locked up in 
 his own breast. 
 
 Was there more than one ! A heavy dufy fell on 
 the police to discover the assassin or assassins. The 
 people looked to them for a solution of the mystery 
 that veiled this crime. 
 
 They worked diligently and incessantly. Detec- 
 tives and policemen took possession of the house, and 
 no one was allowed to enter or leave it, except Fred- 
 erick and the newspaper reporters. 
 5 D
 
 50 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 In the meantime, while all this was taking place, 
 might not the murderer have been laughing at the 
 officers of the law, and effected his escape? Whither 
 had he fled ? It was not likely that he would remain 
 in the same city where his crime had been committed. 
 These were questions which no one could answer. 
 
 The coroner's inquest was held. It developed 
 nothing new nothing that was unknown. There 
 was no clue to the assassin or his motive. The police 
 were stimulated by the offer of large rewards; but 
 they had nothing to work on. The mystery remained 
 as black as evfer. Who would dissolve it ? 
 
 And so Leslie Wyndham was buried. The funeral 
 was very large ; but Frederick was not present. 
 
 The traditional nine days elapsed, and the specula- 
 tion in regard to the mystery ceased. There were new 
 and important events to engross public attention. 
 
 In a large city events which once caused great ex- 
 citement are soon and easily forgotten. There is always 
 something new and strange taking place. Event fol- 
 lows event with unceasing rapidity. All receive due 
 attention, and then fall back to make way for some- 
 thing new. 
 
 And so, for a while, Leslie Wyndham and the mys- 
 tery of his death ceased to be talked of. 
 
 Where, all this time, was Frederick Wyndham ? 
 
 The shock which his system had suffered on that 
 eventful morning, when he had tripped over the dead 
 body of his father, had thrown him upon a bed of 
 sickness. 
 
 By a singular fatality he had been conveyed to the 
 residence of Mr. Derville, and here poor May had
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 61 
 
 f hi tli fully tended to him all through the fever and 
 delirium which ensued. 
 
 Thoughts of his father were ever uppermost in his 
 mind, and in his delirium he moaned wildly, "Father, 
 oh, father ! " He begged to be forgiven for the suffer- 
 ing he had caused the dead, and he recounted, with a 
 horrible minuteness, the discovery of the murder. 
 
 While Leslie Wyndham was being conveyed to his 
 last resting-place, his son was tossing wildly on his 
 couch, from side to side, moaning and crying, " Father ! 
 oh, father, forgive me, forgive me ! I did not mean 
 to pain you, for I loved you oh ! I loved you ! " 
 
 Then he would laugh a shrill, piercing laugh that 
 made the blood curdle in the veins of those who heard 
 it and starting up in his bed would point with his 
 finger, and cry, 
 
 " I see him ! I see him ! Oh, he is killing him ! 
 Murder! murder! Police! police!" and fall back ex- 
 hausted. 
 ******* 
 
 "Yes; she's a proud, stuck-up thing." 
 
 " So homely and conceited, too." 
 
 " She 's no better than she ought to be, either." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Why, haven't you heard?" 
 
 " Xo." 
 
 " What ! you don't know ? " 
 
 " I really don't. What is it?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing! I thought you knew; but never 
 mind." 
 
 This conversation was repeated, with additions, to 
 some one else. Some one else added to it, and told her
 
 52 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 particular friend, who, enlarging and magnifying its 
 importance, told her particular friend. And so, from 
 a little spiteful conversation, a vile and horrible story 
 was concocted. No one knew anything about it, ex- 
 cept " They say," that convenient subterfuge for scan- 
 dal-mongers. But the effect was the same. A fair 
 woman's name was blasted forever, and she was made 
 to feel that life was a curse, that she was shunned and 
 despised, until, in a fit of desperation, she ended her 
 existence. 
 
 From a little acorn springs the giant oak. 
 
 Somebody made a remark in regard to Leslie Wynd- 
 ham's murder. It went around in whispers, as though 
 the whisperers were aware of the lie they were utter- 
 ing, gradually gaining ground and credence. 
 
 It was a terrible thing a terrible charge. But by 
 a certain class of persons it was eagerly seized, com- 
 mented upon and believed. 
 
 We may divide the world into two great classes 
 the rich and the poor. 
 
 Among the poor, so far as regards themselves, we 
 will find more charity, more brotherly love, and more 
 of the helping hand. But between them and the rich 
 there is an indefinable hatred. 
 
 Let a rich man, or a rich man's son, be accused of 
 any crime, how quick the poor say, with a sneer : 
 
 " There is your rich man, your good man ; that 's 
 the kind of men they are." 
 
 It was this class who hastened to believe and repeat 
 the horrible rumor respecting Leslie Wyndham's mur- 
 der, while, at the same time, they shrugged their 
 shoulders, and said :
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 53 
 
 " He has money, though. It would be different 
 with me." 
 
 Now there is nothing much in these words them- 
 selves, yet when uttered by the poor in certain cases, 
 they conceal a mint of hidden meaning. 
 
 This feeling between the rich and poor is, in part, 
 jealousy ; yet the true cause of it is because the rich, 
 (we speak of rich and poor as a class, not individually) 
 instead of helping the poor, look down upon the com- 
 mon laborer with scorn, forgetting that without him 
 they could not have their grand brown stone fronts 
 and palaces. They do not think what they owe to this 
 man ; they forget that every man is dependent on his 
 fellow-man. The true cause of this feeling is because 
 the rich crush the poor. How, then, can there be any 
 brotherly feeling between them ? 
 
 Labor is dependent on capital ; but capital is also 
 dependent on labor. Neither should belittle or tyran- 
 nize the other. 
 
 But, unfortunately, as the Elizabethan era was the 
 age of literature, the nineteenth century is more par- 
 ticularly the age of money-making. Everything bends 
 the knee before the shrine of Mammon. 
 
 The lawyer, the doctor, the laborer, the business man, 
 (again speaking of a class, and not of an individual) 
 all pursue their different avocations. And this great 
 object for which they work, and work, and labor, and 
 toil, and fret, and worry, and gamble, and cheat, and 
 rob, and lie, with such commendable, to be praised 
 industry this great object, after all, sifted down, 
 amounts to what? Not a desire to benefit their 
 fellow-men, but to what Washington Irving has very 
 6*
 
 54 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 aptly and expressively termed the "almighty dol- 
 lar!" 
 
 Asking the reader's pardon for this digression, we 
 continue : 
 
 It must be remembered that neither Mr. Derville or 
 Frederick knew aught, or heard aught, of these rumors. 
 In fact, the latter was still confined to his room, with 
 gentle May for his nurse, and neither of them saw 
 any of the newspapers. 
 
 One fine morning, not quite a week after this rumor 
 began to spread, Mr. and Mrs. Derville were sitting 
 alone at breakfast, leisurely sipping their coffee, when, 
 suddenly, he uttered an exclamation of mingled horror 
 and surprise, and, letting the paper he was reading fall 
 from his hands, cried, with a face as pale as death 
 
 " It is a lie ! a lie ! a wicked, soulless lie ? " 
 
 'Why, what is the matter?" exclaimed his wife, 
 alarmed. 
 
 "See there!" he said, vehemently, and pointing to 
 the paper. 
 
 She took it up and read in large letters : 
 
 LESLIE WYNDHAM'S ASSASSIN!! 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE MURDERER! 
 A TERRIBLE DENOUEMENT ! 
 
 Full Particulars of the Murder, and How it was Committed I 
 
 She stopped, with a feeling of coming evil at her 
 heart. 
 
 Her husband sat perfectly motionless, his face as 
 white as marble, and his teeth clenched tightly to- 
 gether. 
 
 She continued reading :
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 55 
 
 " A rumor has been going round from mouth to 
 mouth, during the last few days, and gaining strength 
 and ground, in regard to this mysterious tragedy, 
 which has, thus far, puzzled and baffled all the eiforts 
 of the authorities to discover any trace of its perpe- 
 trators." 
 
 And then it went on to narrate the full particulars. 
 
 The writer pretended to know all about the tragedy. 
 He told how the assassin had entered the house, and 
 detailed, with a horrible minuteness, all his movements 
 before and after perpetrating the crime, and concluded 
 with a terrible charge that sent all the color from Mrs. 
 Derville's face, and made her tremble with anger. 
 
 The article came out boldly, and accused Frederick 
 Wyndham of being a parricide ! 
 
 " It is false ! utterly false, Richard !" she cried, " and 
 the writer knows it, too. Oh, how can they publish 
 such a wicked lie ! Richard, Richard ! it is not so ! 
 it is not so ! " 
 
 " Be calm, Mary, be calm. It is too late to remedy 
 it now. It is in print, and by this time all New York 
 knows it. We can do nothing at present. It is a 
 sensation, got up to sell the paper, utterly untrue, and 
 its author shall suffer for it ! " 
 
 " But what shall we do, Richard ! what shall we do ? 
 Oh, it is terrible infamous ! " 
 
 " Terrible, indeed ! And the man who could write 
 such an article, without a particle of proof, is a villain, 
 for whom hanging is too good. He shall be attended 
 to : never fear. But we must not let them see the 
 paper ; he must know nothing of it." 
 
 By the next morning all $ew York had perused
 
 56 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 the horrible narrative. It was copied into other 
 papers, and its author denounced by them all. 
 
 There were cries of shame ! terrible ! wicked ! dis- 
 graceful ! and threats of horsewhipping, and other 
 summary proceedings. And yet many of those who 
 were loudest in their denunciations secretly believed it 
 to be true. 
 
 What if it was unnatural ? It was not impossible. 
 Such things had happened more than once. And 
 then he was known to be a wild, dissipated young 
 man. 
 
 But the next issue of the paper increased the excite- 
 ment to a fearful degree. 
 
 " We have been denounced and threatened on all 
 sides," it said, " but we still stick to the truth, and 
 repeat what we have said. Leslie Wyndham was 
 murdered by his son. We are fully aware of the 
 nature and horribleness of the charge we make; we 
 would wish it possible that we were mistaken. But 
 in the face of the facts, and after due consideration, we 
 were compelled to come out boldly with the accusation, 
 and we can prove it." 
 
 Here followed an account of Frederick Wyndhara's 
 dissipated life, his father's remonstrances, the quarrels 
 between the two all tending to show the young man 
 to be utterly unprincipled. The motive alleged for 
 the crime was money ! The safe had been searched 
 and ransacked for Leslie Wyndham's will, which his 
 son knew almost the same as disinherited him. In 
 the event of the murdered man dying intestate, his 
 vast estate would descend to his only heir-at-law his 
 son. Was not the motive sufficient.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 57 
 
 The whole story was narrated coolly and calmly, 
 supported by facts and circumstances. 
 
 The article concluded : 
 
 " The police have been negligent and careless in 
 their investigation. Let them look in the second 
 bureau-drawer in the parricide's room, far back, and 
 see what they find wrapped up in a small parcel which 
 lies there." 
 
 " The second bureau-drawer in the parricide's room !" 
 No one had thought of looking there ; but long before 
 the paper was out on the news-stands, the drawer was 
 searched, and the small parcel found. 
 
 Carefully, and with trembling fingers, it was opened. 
 There were five rolls of paper wrapped around the 
 article inside it. 
 
 This article was a razor, stained and clotted with 
 blood, and on the handle was engraved the name 
 " Frederick Wyndham." 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 One more scene, heartrending in the extreme, must 
 be recorded before the conclusion of this chapter. 
 
 Mr. Derville had been thinking over that article in 
 the paper for some time. By listening attentively he 
 found that there were many who more than half be- 
 lieved the preposterous story. 
 
 Pie came to one conclusion. Frederick must leave 
 the city until the furore created by that article died 
 out. 
 
 On the very morning that the paper came out re- 
 iterating its previous story, he had a carriage waiting 
 at his house door. 
 
 Frederick Wyndham had so far recovered as to be
 
 58 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 able to walk about his room. He had not, as yet, 
 ventured to go into the street. Happy, delighted 
 May was always with him always at home. 
 
 For a few moments after Mr. Derville entered the 
 room, the conversation was about well, nothing. 
 
 But at last he spoke out. 
 
 " Frederick, my son," he said, kindly, but with an 
 air of determination, " I have a carriage waiting at the 
 door for you. You must leave the city with me for a 
 few days." 
 
 " Leave the city ! " echoed poor May, feeling slightly 
 alarmed. 
 
 "Leave the city?" repeated Frederick. "Why, 
 what do you mean ? What for ? " 
 
 "Don't ask me any questions, for God's sake, my 
 son, but come. Only for a few days. Come, come 
 quick, before it is too late." 
 
 He spoke in a tone of entreaty. The young man 
 was completely mystified. Poor little May clung to 
 his arm. 
 
 At this instant Mrs. Derville entered hurriedly, 
 evidently in great agitation. 
 
 " O, Richard, it is too late ! too late ! too late ! " she 
 cried, and falling on her knees, she hid her face in her 
 husband's lap. 
 
 He bowed his head in terrible anguish. 
 
 Two policemen entered. One closed the door, and 
 stood with his back to it. The other advanced, and 
 laid his hand on the young man's shoulder. 
 
 " Come, my man," he said, " you are wanted. Your 
 carriage is too late ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " the young man said, sternly. 
 " What is the object of this farce ? "
 
 THE WOELD TO BLAME. 69 
 
 " I am not here to answer questions," was the reply. 
 " I hope you '11 not compel us to use force. Best come 
 along quietly." 
 
 " Frederick ! Frederick ! " cried May, throwing 
 her slight airy form between the two. " There is some 
 mistake some terrible mistake here ! " 
 
 " There is no mistake, Miss. I wish there was I 
 hope there is," the officer said, kindly, touched in spite 
 of himself by the sight of her pale, agonized face, " for 
 your sake and his. I must perform my duty. Young 
 man, you must come with me ! " 
 
 Frederick Wyndham was struck dumb with astonish- 
 ment ; he could not speak. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Derville were silent. 
 
 "Oh! no! no! no!" cried poor May, throwing 
 her arms around him as if to hold him fast. " You 
 shall not take him. He shall not go. Go away. Go 
 away. Oh ! say you will let him be in peace. You 
 will kill him. What has he done ? What has he 
 done?" 
 
 " He is charged with the murder of Leslie Wynd- 
 ham, his father." 
 
 The words fell upon their ears like the knell of doom. 
 A groan escaped Derville's lips; his wife shrieked. 
 
 " It is not true ! It is not true ! O God ! it is not 
 true ! Frederick, Frederick, it is not true ! 
 
 " It is a lie a base lie," he murmured, hoarsely. 
 
 "Thank " The arms slipped from his body, 
 
 and the poor girl sank unconscious to the floor. 
 ******* 
 
 The same carriage which had been provided to take 
 him out of the city conveyed Frederick Wyndham to 
 the Tombs.
 
 60 THE WOELD TO BLAME. . 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IN THE TOMBS. 
 
 rTiriE effect of the news of Leslie Wyndham's terrible 
 -JL end on Mary Farly can better be imagined than 
 described. She knew him as a man among men ; as 
 one who had been her steadfast friend in her hour of 
 need; who had saved her, time and time again, from 
 a husband's drunken fury; as one who loved her, 
 whom she revered, and yet was separated from by a 
 cruel fate. To her he was pure, good, honest, and 
 noble ; one of those men to whom the weak almost 
 instinctively look up for protection. 
 
 It was a great blow, also, to the Smithsons, the kind 
 friends whom Leslie Wyndham had provided for her. 
 Knowing her as they did, they could not but respect 
 her grief. 
 
 She would fain have gone and looked upon his loved 
 face for the last time, ere he was placed in the narrow 
 home that awaits us all, forever. But she could not. 
 The stern and cruel laws of society and propriety for- 
 bade it. What would she, a stranger, want among 
 the mourners for the dead ? 
 
 She shrank from exposing her sad history to the 
 gaze of a cold world ; cold, while commiserating with 
 that kind of lofty pity that stings the proud soul to the 
 quick. 
 
 Yes ; she was proud. What was born in her not all 
 the tortures of the damned could have extinguished.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 61 
 
 The poor, the miserable, are proud, as well as the- rich ; 
 and that kind of pity which the rich oft express for 
 the poor when they read of the end of some sad his- 
 tory, only serves to more embitter the hatred existing 
 between the two classes. Not that Mary Farly's was 
 that cursed lofty and foolish pride we so often meet 
 with. By no means. She did not imagine or consider 
 herself as far superior to all other people ; gold was not 
 her standard, but education ; she judged by the beauty 
 and nobility of the soul, not by the face and clothes. 
 
 Mr. Smithson went to attend to the funeral rites of 
 his old friend. He was well known as Leslie Wynd- 
 ham's most intimate and esteemed friend, and, by com- 
 mon consent, he took charge of the necessary arrange- 
 ments for the funeral. So that he remained in town, 
 leaving his family and Mary Farly to await his return, 
 the latter in a state of nervous anxiety which words 
 cannot express. 
 
 It was on the very day that Frederick Wyndham 
 was arrested that he returned to his home. 
 
 To say that they were astonished and horrified at 
 the news he brought would be but faintly to express 
 their feelings. 
 
 Mary Farly did not exhibit a trace of the emotion 
 she felt ; but she had immediately made up her mind 
 as to the course she should pursue. 
 
 She spoke calmly when she asked : 
 
 " And do you believe him guilty, Mr. Smithson ? " 
 
 " No, never ! It is utterly preposterous," he replied. 
 " The idea was first started by an obscure paper, I know 
 not with what motive, more than a week ago. The 
 article was severely condemned, but the paper continued
 
 62 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 to accuse the young man of being a parricide. The 
 consequence is that he has been arrested. The par- 
 ticulars are very contradictory at present, and the 
 greatest excitement prevails. The evening papers say 
 that the proof against him appears to be very conclu- 
 sive. It is claimed that a bloody razor, bearing his 
 name, has been found in his drawer. I have not 
 heard of any other evidence against him, but I am 
 positive that he is innocent. It is incredible. In the 
 morning I shall go to town early and see what I can 
 do. I shall, therefore, in all probability not return." 
 
 " I shall go with you," Mary Farly said, quietly. 
 
 " You ? " 
 
 " I. Do not endeavor to persuade me to alter my 
 determination. Please do not oppose me. You know 
 what I owe to the dead." 
 
 Her voice trembled slightly here, and for a moment 
 her eyes were blinded by her tears, and she could not 
 speak. Then she continued : 
 
 "I must see his son and judge for myself of his 
 innocence. I feel that he is not guilty and, oh ! shall 
 I sit idle here in a turmoil of anxiety and expectation, 
 while his son is in danger? You smile; you think I 
 can be of no help. Oh, if I see him, if I but hear 
 him say that he is innocent, as I feel he is, I shall 
 work, work to save him, to establish his innocence. 
 Oh, that such a terrible charge, involving life and 
 death a charge which is certain to leave a stain on 
 an innocent being's name should be so lightly brought, 
 should be made public on such slender grounds ! I 
 know the world. Accuse one of a crime, and there are 
 always those who, even if the accused's innocence be
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 63 
 
 established, will still think him guilty. Oh, it is ter- 
 rible ! horrible ! His son his son a murderer ! Oh, 
 no ! no ! no ! it is impossible ! He was noble, he was 
 good, just, pure, honest; and can they tell me, who 
 knew him so well, that such seed could bear poisonous 
 fruit ? No ! no ! He is innocent I feel it ; I know 
 it. I must see him see him alone. I must, if need 
 be, tell him all that I owe to his his father, if he will 
 not listen to me without knowing why I befriend him. 
 Then do not oppose my wishes. I must see him." 
 
 She spoke earnestly from her heart. 
 
 He saw that she meant what she said, and, though 
 he would rather she would have remained where she 
 was, after her earnest words he could not oppose her 
 desire. 
 
 He knew more than he cared to tell. He was aware 
 of the dissipated life the young man had been leading, 
 and he knew how every little thing, in itself amount- 
 ing to nothing, would be perverted, and made to tell 
 against the accused. From what he had heard during 
 the time he had remained in the city he felt that the 
 evidence against Frederick would be terrible. 
 
 They went to the city together the following morning. 
 What she felt, what she suffered, what her thoughts 
 were, during that, to her, long ride, only God and her- 
 self ever knew. She did not once speak. 
 
 All around them the passengers were reading the 
 morning papers, and speculating as to his innocence or 
 guilt. The excitement which prevailed could be felt 
 and seen, but not portrayed. 
 
 At last the journey was ended, and after some little 
 trouble and necessary delay, they entered the gloomy
 
 64 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 and frowning portals of that dismal building, known 
 as the Tombs, which so many have entered, never to 
 emerge from again in the consciousness of liberty. 
 
 Short as had been the time since his arrest, through 
 the kindness of his friends and the warden, the prison- 
 er's cell had been fitted up comfortably the papers 
 stated " luxuriously." 
 
 He was seated near the bed, thinking, when the two 
 entered. Though he was very pale and weak-looking, 
 he was very calm and self-possessed, almost unnaturally 
 so. In fact it was impossible for him to grasp or com- 
 prehend the full nature and meaning of the crime with 
 which he was charged. He was as much in the dark 
 as any one in the city ; he could not understand his 
 situation. It appeared to him like a horrible night- 
 mare. 
 
 He arose as they entered, and recognizing Mr. Smith- 
 son, extended his hand, with a painful smile, saying : 
 
 " I am glad to see you, and thank you for your kind- 
 ness. I have had many friends call to see me. You 
 see they have made me as comfortable as possible, under 
 the circumstances." 
 
 Mr. Smithson shook his hand warmly, and said, 
 cheerfully : 
 
 " It pleases me to see that you are so calm, and that 
 you have recovered from your sickness. Keep up a 
 brave heart, my boy. It is all a terrible mistake, that 
 will soon be explained satisfactorily. There are friends 
 outside who will work for you. Be of good cheer, and 
 keep firm ; for, remember, you are innocent. That 
 knowledge should bear you up against all the malice 
 of your enemies."
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 65 
 
 Then, after a little desultory conversation, he intro- 
 duced Mary Farly, who, standing in the background, 
 had been scrutinizing Frederick's appearance closely. 
 
 Upon hearing her sad history, which Mr. Smithson 
 considered it best to disclose to him, and her determi- 
 nation, the poor young man could not restrain for a 
 Inoment his emotion, and, grasping her extended hand, 
 murmured chokingly : 
 
 " God bless you ! Oh, this is horrible ! I cannot 
 understand it at all ! I am innocent ! God knows I 
 am innocent ! This is terrible ! This suspicion will 
 kill me, I am sure." 
 
 " Don't give way so, my poor boy," Mr. Smithson 
 said, cheerfully. " We all know you are innocent, and 
 we will prove it. Only keep up a brave heart, and all 
 will go well, depend upon it. Trust in God." 
 
 Then, saying that he would call soon again, and tell- 
 ing Mary to meet him at the Hotel, he bade the 
 
 young man good-by, and left the two alone. 
 
 For some minutes after his departure they remained 
 silent. Then, suddenly, she took his hand in hers, 
 and looking him full in the face, said : 
 
 " Tell me again that you are innocent ! " 
 
 " I am innocent ! " he exclaimed, almost proudly. 
 " Before God I swear that I am innocent. I know as 
 much about it as you do. I am in the dark totally 
 in the dark in regard to this terrible accusation. I 
 cannot yet believe that it is a reality. Oh, God ! can 
 you doubt me ? " 
 
 " No, no ! a thousand times, no ! You are innocent; 
 I would venture my existence on it. Cheer up, oh ! 
 cheer up, and trust in Him who seeth even the little 
 
 6* E
 
 66 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 sparrow fall. Remember that you have friends who 
 would die for you, willingly. It is all a mistake a 
 horrible nightmare that will soon pass over. And 
 now, command me; tell me, is there anything I can 
 do for you ? " 
 
 "No yes," he answered, after a moment's hesita- 
 tion, striving to conquer his emotion, and succeeding. 
 " You are a woman. I place implicit faith in you, 
 though I have not known you long, for I feel that 
 you are my friend. You have loved, you have suf- 
 fered. There is one who loves me, one whom I love, for 
 whom I feel more than for myself. It is the thought 
 of her that causes me to suffer. For myself, I am 
 innocent; that knowledge it is which makes me so 
 calm, and keeps my spirits up. But she loves me, 
 I, who am so unworthy of such a pure, self-sacrificing 
 love. She will suffer for me. Oh, God ! oh, God ! 
 May ! oh, dear May ! My love ! my love ! " 
 
 He stopped, for his emotion was again choking him } 
 but presently he continued : 
 
 "Go to her; confront her as only a woman can. 
 Tell her that I am innocent, that all is right. Cheer 
 her, support her; tell her that I think of her ever; 
 tell her that I beg of her not to fret or worry ; that it 
 is better I shpuld not see her. It would unnerve 
 and weaken me, now when I have most need of my 
 strength. Tell her that night and day I pray for her ; 
 that her image is always before my eyes to instil me 
 with hope and courage. I beg of her not to suffer for 
 me ; not to give way to despair, but to hope for the 
 best. Tell her how calm I am. You, who are a 
 woman who has lived and suffered, will know how to
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 67 
 
 comfort her. Stay; I will give you a few lines to 
 her." 
 
 He sat himself down and wrote, while the tears 
 stood in his eyes, and her heart went out to him in 
 pity. Then, when it was finished, he gave it to her 
 and said : 
 
 " Remember what I have told you. And now 
 good-by ; I will see you again. Good-by, and may 
 God bless you ! " 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TBIED FOR HIS LIFE. 
 
 fTlHE feeling against Frederick "Wyndham was, 
 -L from some cause, very great and bitter. The 
 public mind had been excited by a series of unpun- 
 ished crimes, and the public tongue clamored for 
 vengeance. The press, that mighty agent for good or 
 evil, even those papers which had scouted at the idea 
 when it was first broached, after his arrest, all de- 
 nounced the parricide, as they called him. 
 
 Instead of keeping strictly to their duty, which is to 
 record facts only, and not pronounce verdicts, all the 
 newspapers commented upon "the horrible crime which 
 had been perpetrated in our midst," and called the 
 prisoner the assassin. 
 
 The law presumes all persons innocent until proved 
 guilty ; and yet Frederick Wyndham was called a 
 murderer before his trial. The newspapers presumed
 
 68 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 him guilty. It was wrong, very wrong, and unjust in 
 them to influence public opinion one way or an- 
 other. In times of great excitement popular opinion 
 is hastily formed, and, as a general rule, always wrong. 
 It is only when time has been given the public mind 
 to ponder and reflect, and the public pulse to cool and 
 calm, that public opinion can be justly formed; and it 
 was time enough for the press to comment after the 
 question of the prisoner's guilt or innocence was de- 
 termined by law, and not before. 
 
 Where life or death hangs in the balance there 
 should be no prejudice, no prejudging. The lives 
 that have been blasted forever, and the injury which 
 has been done through the habit of publicly prejudging 
 and commenting on cases before they have been tried, 
 are incalculable. 
 
 The press of a free country like the United States 
 wields great power, possesses great influence and 
 moulds public opinion. How important is it, then^ 
 that they should not swerve one iota from their duty ? 
 How important is it, then, that they should not judge 
 of a fellow-being's guilt until it is proved? Is the 
 question hard to answer? Is it not easy to perceive 
 what an incalculable amount of harm and wrong they 
 can do? 
 
 "Judge not lest ye be judged." 
 
 It was the day of the trial ; for, despite the hopes 
 and assurances of his friends, Frederick Wyndham had 
 been duly indicted for the greatest crime known to the 
 law wilful murder. 
 
 Men fall in battle ; men die every day, yet nothing 
 is thought of it ; but at the mere mention of the word
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 69 
 
 "murder," what excitement springs up! Why? Be- 
 cause it involves the question of the people's safety. 
 
 What a host of thoughts and reflections that simple 
 word conjures up ! How terrible its significance ! 
 
 The court-room was crowded to its utmost extent by 
 a miscellaneous gathering. It was not a very large 
 room at the best. Lawyers, reporters, and judge were 
 there. The ablest counsel that could be procured had 
 been retained in the prisoner's behalf. The District 
 Attorney was on hand to look after the case for the peo- 
 ple. It would be a great triumph for him, if he woii 
 the case. He was a man new to his office, young and 
 able, and this was his first great case. What was it to 
 him that a man was on trial for his life ? What was 
 it to him that the man was young and proclaimed him- 
 self innocent of the terrible crime with which he was 
 charged, and for which he stood before the tribunal of 
 justice to be tried for his life? Did he think of the 
 prisoner, or did he think of the result, if he should 
 gain a verdict on his side in his favor ? Can we 
 blame him that all other considerations were swal- 
 lowed up in the thought of that most powerful motor 
 of human actions self? 
 
 The prisoner sat in his seat, pale, but firm. Who 
 could tell the suffering, the agony which he had known 
 since his arrest and imprisonment ? There he sat, 
 weak and pale, proud and determined, the cynosure of 
 all eyes. Was he guilty, and could he sit there thus 
 boldly and face his accusers, or was he innocent, and 
 was it the light of innocence which shone in his super- 
 naturally bright eyes ? His guilt or innocence would 
 soon be determined.
 
 70 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 Some among the crowd wavered in their opinions, 
 while others smiled grimly, and said, " He is a deep 
 ; un." 
 
 His counsel were by his side, cheering and en- 
 couraging him. 
 
 He kept his eyes resolutely away from wandering 
 a short distance back of him, where sat an old man, 
 slightly haggard, and three ladies, deeply veiled. 
 
 A strange friendship had sprung up between Mary 
 Farly and poor May Derville. 
 
 There is no friendship so great, so pure, or so lasting 
 as that which is formed and has its origin in a common 
 misfortune. 
 
 A great shadow had thus early fallen on the lifepath 
 of this loving young girl a shadow which threatened 
 to darken her existence for years, and perhaps forever. 
 The other had seen and suifered, until she had become 
 used to suffering. Her life had been blasted in its 
 youth. She had known luxury and poverty, happiness 
 and misery. t 
 
 Ah! sometimes all the happiness of years cannot 
 blot out or atone for the suffering of a day. 
 
 We do not intend to describe the meeting of Mary 
 Farly and May Derville, or how they passed those 
 terrible days before the trial, nor what a blighting 
 effect they had on poor May. We could not if we 
 wished, satisfactorily to ourselves or to our readers. 
 They were sad, sad days of darkness and grief. 
 
 Poor May had lived years in a single month. Her 
 parents and Mary tried to dissuade her from attending 
 the trial, but vainly. She had determined to be present, 
 to hear all the evidence and the accusations, though it 
 killed her; and now she is here in the court-room.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 71 
 
 But listen : the proceedings have begun. They are 
 empanelling a jury. First one is rejected; he has 
 formed an opinion. Then another is opposed to cap- 
 ital punishment. Another answers correctly, and is 
 accepted by the prosecution ; but the learned counsel 
 for the defence think that he appears entirely too 
 anxious to get on the jury, and in consequence chal- 
 lenge him peremptorily. 
 
 It is slow, tedious work ; but a jury is obtained at 
 last. See, there sit the twelve men who hold the pris- 
 oner's life in their hands. He looks on the jury, the 
 jury look on him. The trial begins. 
 
 The District Attorney is speaking. His speech is 
 very powerful, very able, very bitter against the 
 prisoner. 
 
 We will not dwell upon the evidence. He proves 
 that the prisoner has led a very dissipated life; that 
 the razor with which the bloody deed had evidently 
 been committed had been found in the prisoner's room, 
 and was, in fact, his ; he calls John Jones, the man- 
 servant before referred to, who testifies that angry 
 words and vain remonstrances had often passed be- 
 tween the deceased and the prisoner ; that on the very 
 night of the murder he had heard the two talking of 
 the life the prisoner had been leading; he shows that 
 the prisoner, by his own admission, was the last one 
 known to enter the house, and had been the first one 
 to discover the murder. The theory in regard to the 
 motive, founded on the evidence, was that the deceased 
 had made a will not in favor of the prisoner, and it 
 was to destroy this will that the crime had been com- 
 mitted.
 
 72 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 The case looked very black against the prisoner ; the 
 circumstances, to say the least, were suspicious. 
 
 The prosecution show that on the very day of the 
 arrest a carriage had been provided by the prisoner's 
 friends to aid in his escape. 
 
 The prosecution rest. 
 
 The court adjourns. 
 
 The prisoner is conveyed back to the Tombs. 
 
 On the following day the defence opened and prom- 
 ised to clear away the suspicion that had been attached 
 to the unfortunate prisoner. 
 
 Poor May took the stand. The excitement was in- 
 tense. You could have heard a pin drop at that moment. 
 She gives her testimony in a clear, firm voice, though 
 she is very pale and trembling with weakness. She 
 shows where the prisoner had passed the evening of 
 that fatal night. Mr. Derville testifies as to the car- 
 riage which he had provided. The defence show that 
 the greatest love existed between the prisoner and the 
 deceased ; that the prisoner, harking to the deceased's 
 counsel, had abandoned his dissipated course. 
 
 A vast amount more testimony is adduced. The 
 witnesses are examined and cross-examined, and at last 
 it is over and the evidence is closed. 
 
 Then arose the senior counsel for the defence to 
 sum up. 
 
 He began in a low but distinct voice, gradually 
 gaining in strength, and power, and pathos, and swell- 
 ing in musical cadence throughout the room. 
 
 He spoke of the love of the deceased for the innocent 
 man who stood before them, accused of a crime as mon- 
 strous as it was improbable. As to the carriage, they
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 73 
 
 had proved that it had been provided in all kindness 
 by Mr. Derville, the prisoner's friend. Was it right 
 that an act of kindness should be made to tell against 
 the prisoner an act which had been done without 
 the knowledge of the young man ? He spoke of the 
 conversation between Derville and Frederick on the 
 morning of the arrest, when the former, who had heard 
 the rumors and read the article accusing the prisoner, 
 urged him to leave the city. What had been the pris- 
 oner's answer ? He wondered at the request : he was 
 surprised. The shock that his system had received on 
 that eventful morning had thrown him on a bed of 
 sickness. He spoke of the suifering the young man had 
 undergone in the solitude of his prison-cell, accused of 
 a crime of which he knew himself to be innocent. It 
 was bad enough for a guilty man, in his prison. 
 What, then, must an innocent being suffer ? He spoke 
 in words so tender and pathetic as to draw tears even 
 to the eyes of the judge. He appealed directly and 
 strongly to the feelings. The motive that the prosecu- 
 tion has alleged was ridiculous the height of absurd- 
 ity. They said that the safe had been ransacked and 
 the will taken out. How did they know a will was 
 there ? Was there, in fact, a will ? They must first 
 prove that the deceased had made such a will as alleged. 
 They had not. Their case fell to the ground. Proof is 
 required, not mere statements without any foundation. 
 As to the fact of the bloody razor, it was unaccountable. 
 The prisoner knew nothing of it. Was it likely that the 
 murderer would hide the instrument of his guilt where 
 it could so easily be found ? It was not probable. It 
 7
 
 74 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 would be a folly such as no one not naturally a fool 
 would be guilty of. 
 
 We cannot speak as he spoke, nor use the language 
 he used. We merely give the substance of his speech. 
 It was not so much what he said as the manner in 
 which he said it. 
 
 He criticised the evidence and dissected it piece by 
 piece, and showed how weak the case against the ac- 
 cused was. Nothing was left untouched, and he con- 
 cluded in a powerful appeal to the jury, charging them 
 to think well and carefully before deciding; to re- 
 member the great and stern duty which rested on them; 
 to remember that a life hung upon their decision. If 
 the prisoner was guilty, he should, by all means, be 
 punished ; but he was not guilty; he was innocent 
 a victim of circumstances. There was no positive 
 proof against him ; the feeling against him had been 
 very great and bitter, and he had been condemned by 
 the press before he was tried at all. There were, at the 
 least, strong doubts of his guilt, and he was entitled to 
 a verdict as just as it would be righteous a verdict 
 of acquittal. 
 
 He sat down. He had made a powerful appeal 
 for the prisoner, and after he had finished, opinions 
 wavered again. The evidence was not so damning and 
 conclusive as it had at first appeared. 
 
 The prisoner thanked him with his eyes. 
 
 And now the District Attorney is summing up. See, 
 how eagerly they listen to his words ! How eloquent he 
 is ! What rapt attention is paid to his powerful speech ! 
 
 Oh, be very careful what you do, my friend ; you 
 know not how soon it may be brought up and made 
 to tell terribly against you.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 75 
 
 How he dwells upon the life the prisoner has been 
 leading ! How he dwells upon every little minute act 
 that can possibly injure the man who stands there and 
 listens aghast to his burning words; the man who 
 longs to cry out, " You lie ! it is a lie ! a lie ! it is not 
 so ! " but dares not, cannot ; is bound to the rock of 
 silence by chains which he is powerless to break ; who 
 must sit there, and listen to all that is said against 
 him without a murmur, but can only shake his head 
 dissentingly. 
 
 The chains which the prosecution have woven around 
 him stagger him. He thinKS he is dreaming; he 
 hardly knows whether he is guilty or innocent. He 
 asks himself, " Can it be ? " He is in a doubt about 
 it himself, so strong is the evidence against him. 
 Could he have killed his father unknowingly? This 
 doubt is agonizing ! He hardly knows what he is to 
 think. Oh, it is fearful ! 
 
 But now his accuser is speaking in eloquent language 
 of the agony and anguish of mind the dead man suf- 
 fered on account of this unnatural son, who had taken 
 what he could never return life from him to 
 whom he owed his existence. He was aware that it 
 seemed unnatural, impossible, but it was a stern 
 reality. 
 
 He dwelt for a long time on this subject. Then he 
 spoke on the subject of the carriage, which had been 
 provided for the prisoner's escape. He spoke on this 
 carriage, on this little incident, at great length. 
 
 Then, as to the motive. The prisoner knew that the 
 deceased had made a will, which practically disinherited 
 him. To destroy this will was a great object of the
 
 76 THE WOELD TO BLAME. 
 
 prisoner. He wanted money. He must have it. 
 And so he murdered his father in cold blood. For 
 what? Had he not shown why? Was not the motive 
 sufficient? Was it not apparent ? 
 
 And so he went on at times pathetic, then stern 
 and accusing, dwelling upon everything at length, 
 until he had made out the guilt of the prisoner almost 
 conclusively. 
 
 They listened to him attentively in amazement and 
 with horror. How black everything looked against 
 the unfortunate prisoner, who sat there with his head 
 bowed at last, perfectly powerless ! 
 
 The speech was ended in the usual way. He de- 
 manded justice, only justice, and then sat down amid 
 murmurs of applause, which were quickly hushed. 
 
 Then came the charge. It was fair and impartial. 
 The judge laid down the law; then presented the evi- 
 dence in a succinct, clear manner. There was no bias 
 one way or another. 
 
 The effect of the charge was to set the people think- 
 ing. It gave them time to recover from the influence 
 of the eloquence of the counsel. 
 
 And now the jury have retired. 
 
 Speculation is rife as to their verdict. Will it be 
 guilty, or not guilty ; or will they disagree ? The judge 
 sits listlessly in his chair. The lawyers are very cool. 
 The people breathe a little. 
 
 What keeps the jury out so long? What can they 
 be arguing about? They will certainly disagree. 
 
 Oh, this terrible suspense ! 
 
 They have come in for further information. 
 
 Then they retire again.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 77 
 
 They are out a long time, surely. 
 
 But now, see still ! here they come. How solemn 
 they look, as they take their places ! 
 
 No one breathes ; how suffocating the air seems ! 
 This silence is terrible. But now it is broken by the 
 clerk of the court. 
 
 " Prisoner, stand ! " 
 
 The prisoner stands. 
 
 " The jury will please rise ! " 
 
 The jury rise. 
 
 " Prisoner, look on the jury ! " 
 
 The prisoner does so. 
 
 "Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon 
 your verdict ? " 
 
 Ah, listen ! 
 
 The foreman answers : 
 
 " We have." 
 
 How still and quiet is the court-room ! 
 
 " And how do you find guilty, or not guilty ? " 
 
 It is absolutely suffocating ! 
 
 But, ha ! Oh, God ! listen to the answer ! 
 
 What is it? What do they say? Oh, God! no! 
 no! y 
 
 " GUILTY ! " 
 
 The echo replies : 
 
 "GUILTY!" 
 
 The prisoner stands firm. But deaden your ears to 
 that terrible, unearthly shriek ! Oh, it is awful ! Some 
 one has fainted. There is a slight commotion, while 
 the prisoner staggers, and, unable longer to control his 
 emotion, shrieks out one word in a tone of exquisite 
 suffering and anguish : 
 7*
 
 78 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 "MAY!" 
 
 But now they have borne the lifeless form out, and 
 quiet is restored again. 
 
 The defence request that the jury be polled. 
 
 One by one they record their verdict. They all 
 answer : 
 
 "Guilty!" 
 
 The sentence is being pronounced, but the prisoner 
 only hears the last words : 
 
 " There to be hanged by the neck until you are 
 
 dead, and may God, in His infinite goodness, have 
 mercy on your soul ! " 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE BITTERNESS OF THE SOUL. 
 
 IT is a fine, bright day outside. The air is full of a 
 soft, sweet calmness that sets you thinking and 
 dreaming, and makes you feel indolent and sleepy. 
 You have seen such days, when the blood seems hardly 
 to course through the veins ; when the mind wanders 
 far away, and the eyelids have an almost irresistible 
 tendency to close. The soft breeze sweeps across your 
 heated brow ; oh ! so delicious and cooling. You do 
 not feel like working, or getting into a passion ; the 
 dreamy softness in the air has a soothing effect, and 
 makes you feel at rest. Everything appears beautiful 
 to your sight; and, if confined to the city, you long,
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 79 
 
 oh ! so fervently, for a short sail on the river, and a 
 glimpse of the green trees and blooming fields of the 
 country. You feel at rest, at peace ; and you do not 
 think that there are other human beings like yourself, 
 from whom the 'sunshine, the refreshing breeze, the 
 beauties of the day are all excluded ; who are suffering 
 untold agony; who are crying out in anguish and 
 passion, and cursing the day that had witnessed their 
 entrance into a world naturally good and beautiful, but 
 made what it is by those who live in it. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is true. No sunshine, no cooling 
 breeze steals through the dark portals of the city prison, 
 into the cell which seems to mock at the suffering of 
 the man so young, who paces up and down while he 
 speaks to the woman who sits by the side of the bed. 
 
 The cell is continually reminding him, that, though 
 he is in good health, and might live for years, he is 
 dying, dying fast ; that at a certain hour of a certain 
 day that is approaching it seems to him with light- 
 ning-like rapidity his heart will cease to beat, and 
 the warm blood will not course any more through his 
 veins. It is a terrible thing to be placed face to face 
 with death ; to see the ghostly visitor stretch out his 
 skeleton hand toward you, who are powerless to move 
 beyond his reach ; to feel his icy hand touch your body, 
 so warm with life. Oh, it is terrible ! 
 
 "It is not right; it is wrong and cruel and unjust," 
 he was saying, in a tone that showed the agony he suf- 
 fered could be felt, but never told ; " I have no rest, no 
 peace, only darkness wherever I turn my eyes. I ask 
 myself, is it a dream ? And then I look around. No ! 
 The terrible reality forces itself upon my mind. I am.
 
 80 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 dying ! I curse the day that gave me birth ! I ask 
 myself why was I born to such . a fate ? I shall go 
 wild, wild, I tell you ! " 
 
 " Hush ; be calm, Frederick. There is no help for 
 it, or you would not be here. It would be better if 
 you could die now, for then you would escape the igno- 
 miny of the other. But, no, that must not be, for they 
 would say that you acknowledged your guilt by taking 
 your own life. And that shall never be ! They shall 
 never say that you admitted the crime for which they 
 have condemned you ! Be strong and firm in your 
 innocence, and remember, that however they may judge 
 you here on earth, there is a God above us all who can 
 see into the innermost recesses of the heart ; who knows 
 the truth, and who is just ! " 
 
 " And who is just ? " he repeated, almost mockingly, 
 continuing in a passionate, bitter tone: "Some men- 
 have wealth, luxury, happiness; others have only 
 poverty, misery, starvation ! Is this right, is this just, 
 Mrs. Farly? Some women have every comfort a 
 human being can enjoy ; others are compelled to sell 
 their very souls for a morsel of bread ! Is this right, is 
 this just, Mary Farly? If we are all His children, 
 why are we not treated alike ? Misery to you, and 
 happiness to him is that just? Some men commit 
 murder and escape ; others are innocent and hang. Is 
 that just? I tell you I am innocent, innocent, inno- 
 cent as the babe unborn ! And yet I am condemned 
 to the gallows ! I am called murderer, assassin, loathed, 
 despised, scorned, pitied! The thought of death is 
 terrible to the guilty ! To see day by day slip by with 
 ceaseless rapidity; to know that you are well, might
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 81 
 
 live for years, and yet must die ; to see death coming 
 nearer and nearer to you every moment ; to know that 
 at a certain hour you must walk, powerless and help- 
 less, to certain death ! Can you realize what this is ? 
 Can you appreciate what an exquisite invention of tor- 
 ture this is ? They say it is an easy death. It may 
 be. But it is the agonizing thought, which cannot be 
 stopped, that torments you before that day comes which 
 you are aware is to be your last day on earth ! Ah ! 
 It is a torture rack, an exquisite invention of cruelty ! 
 It is terrible enough to a guilty wretch ; but when one 
 is innocent, what must it be then ? You cannot imagine 
 what it is to an innocent being, possessed of a sensitive 
 mind, to know that he is called murderer, assassin ; is 
 loathed, despised, scorned; his life-blood craved for, 
 and yet is pitied by the sentimental few, who pity while 
 they think him guilty ! Bah ! And this is what 
 you call just! Is it? is it? is it right? is it just? 
 No ! " 
 
 She had listened to him thus far in a sort of horrible 
 fascination, that enchained her attention, and rendered 
 her unable to utter a word ; but now she interrupted 
 him : 
 
 " Stop ! stop ! Frederick," she cried, with out- 
 stretched hands, " you know not what you are saying, 
 nor how you are paining me. You are angry, and 
 half-crazed, or you would never speak so ! I cannot 
 think that in your right mind you would say what you 
 have said. Stop, I implore you ; for your own sake, 
 for my sake, for the sake of her who loves you with an 
 unutterable love, but who is resigned ; who would 
 
 rather you should die, than live to be pointed out and 
 
 F
 
 82 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 called a murderer; who has bowed her head before 
 Him, and said, * Thy will be done ; ' for the sake of 
 your angel father, and your sainted mother, who look 
 down on you from heaven, and know your innocence, 
 I beg you, I implore you, do not talk in that sacri- 
 legious way, but place your faith in Him ! * He moves 
 in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.' 
 
 What, oh what is the wealth of the Indies, 
 Compared to the boon of a priceless love ? 
 
 What, oh what are the pleasures of earth, 
 Compared to the bliss of heaven above ? " 
 
 She stopped for a moment, and then continued : 
 
 " When He commanded Abraham of old to sacrifice 
 the son whom he loved so well, the son of his old age, 
 his Isaac, upon the altar, did that great patriarch hesi- 
 tate, and say, 'It is wrong, it is cruel, it is unjust?' 
 No ! He wept, but he obeyed the will of his Almighty 
 Father, and led his son, his Isaac, to the sacrificial 
 altar ! Oh, it is a grand, a great story ! It teaches 
 us that they who place their faith and trust in Him 
 will never be deserted, need never fear; for He is 
 good, He is just ! What is earth compared to heaven ? 
 So long as he knows your innocence, what if the world 
 say you are guilty ? " 
 
 "But it is an ignominious death; you yourself 
 said so." 
 
 " Did I ? I was wrong. No death is ignominious 
 to the innocent, only to the guilty. Place your faith 
 in Him, trust in Him, pray to Him to forgive your 
 sins. The repentant shall be forgiven, even at the 
 eleventh hour. He doeth all things for the best ; there
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 83 
 
 is good in everything. His purpose may not be 
 known, cannot be seen by us ; but it is good. It may 
 seem strange, cruel, unjust to us poor mortals ; but it 
 is not so. It is not for us to question, or ask why, but 
 only to obey to say ' Thy will, not mine, be done.' I 
 know it seems hard, is hard to say, but the soul should 
 rise superior to the body and the mind. Believe me, 
 He doeth all things for the best. Only trust in Him 
 and you are safe. 
 
 I can hear him in the sunshine ; 
 In tempest and storm I hear 
 His voice a saying unto me, 
 Place all your faith and trust in me; 
 Have faith and ye need not fear." 
 
 She spoke like one inspired, with such earnestness 
 and evident sincerity, as to make him repent the 
 words he had uttered in the bitterness of his soul. 
 ******* 
 
 It is the day before the execution. 
 
 Hear what the prisoner says to his devoted friend 
 the friend who had suffered so much, and yet whose 
 mission it had been to conceal her own grief and con- 
 sole others. 
 
 " You say she is resigned. I am glad of it. I, too, 
 am resigned. I do not fear death now. I have 
 thought and thought and thought of it, until the idea 
 has become familiar to my mind, and I think of it no 
 more. Death has lost its terrors for me now it 
 would really be a disappointment were I to live. 
 God is just, and whatever is is right."
 
 84 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 [From the New York .] 
 
 Yesterday was a beautiful day. What a contrast to 
 the scene which was enacted in the yard of the Tombs, 
 where an unnatural son expiated his terrible crime ! 
 
 At twelve o'clock noon, yesterday, Frederick Wynd- 
 ham, the parricide, paid the penalty of the crime of 
 which he was convicted and found guilty beyond the 
 possibility of a doubt. The evidence was all against 
 him ; he was clearly and undoubtedly proved guilty, 
 notwithstanding the eloquence of the able counsel who 
 defended him. 
 
 Our readers are all familiar with the facts of the 
 tragedy, the subsequent arrest and trial of the assassin, 
 and yet a brief synopsis may not be uninteresting. 
 
 (Here followed the synopsis.) Yesterday the pris- 
 oner had an audience with his steadfast friends, Mr., 
 Mrs. and Miss Derville, Mr. Smithson and his lady 
 friend. The scene was affecting in the extreme. The 
 parting between the unfortunate man, who still professes 
 his innocence, notwithstanding the terrible array of 
 facts against him, and his betrothed, brought tears even 
 to the eyes of those who have become accustomed to 
 such scenes. 
 
 At twelve o'clock the prisoner announced himself 
 ready, and marched with a proud, firm step, and head 
 erect, to the frowning gallows. There were only a few 
 spectators present outside of the officials and reporters. 
 
 The unfortunate man allowed himself to be pinioned 
 
 calmly. The Rev. Mr. offered up a prayer. The 
 
 prisoner heard the death-warrant read in silence. 
 When asked if he had anything to say, he replied : 
 
 "I forgive my enemies. I thank you all for the
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 85 
 
 kindness you have shown me during my prison-life. I 
 have made my peace with God. I am willing to die, 
 but I am innocent ; by the Heaven above me, I swear 
 that I am innocent." 
 
 Then the black cap that was to shut out the sunlight 
 forever from his eyes, was drawn over his face. 
 
 Silence and dread seemed to hang over everything. 
 " No man dared to look aloft ; fear was on every 
 soul." 
 
 The silence was broken by the sharp twang of a 
 rope, and the unfortunate being was jerked from his 
 feet into the air. There he hung between heaven and 
 earth. 
 
 How black and still it seemed ! 
 
 Once or twice the legs were drawn up as if in pain. 
 That was all. 
 
 He died easy of strangulation. At half-past 
 twelve the body was cut down and life pronounced 
 extinct. The remains were delivered to his friends 
 for interment. 
 
 So ended the last act of the drama; and while we 
 cannot but feel pity that one so young should have 
 come to such an untimely and ignominious end, we 
 hope that his fate will prove a warning to others who 
 are even now treading in his footsteps, and giving full 
 sway to unbridled and vicious passions, which, if not 
 controlled and kept in check, must sooner or later end 
 in a death of shame and ignominy.
 
 86 THE WOULD TO BLAME. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CAPITAL, PUNISHMENT. 
 
 IT was, indeed, true. Frederick Wyndham had 
 walked with a firm, even tread, his head erect, to 
 the scaffold. 
 
 If he shuddered inwardly as he looked on the dread 
 instrument of death, whatever he may have felt and 
 who can tell the feelings of a human being at such a 
 moment ? he showed no outward signs of emotion. 
 
 He did not meet his death with that bravado which 
 says, " I will die like a man." They flatter themselves 
 who say so ; they do not die like men, but like dogs. 
 
 It was the knowledge that he was innocent which 
 upheld him in this terrible hour. All the joy and 
 pleasure that he had anticipated in his life had gone 
 out. 
 
 We have already quoted from a morning paper, show- 
 ing that he died protesting his innocence. 
 
 The evening journals had all come out with extras, 
 and the newsboys had shouted " Extra ! Full par- 
 ticulars of the execution ! " 
 
 The papers were greedily snapped up, for there is a 
 sort of horrible fascination in this kind of reading. 
 
 What is the argument in favor of capital punish- 
 ment? What its object? The argument, and the 
 only plausible plea in its favor, is that the interests of 
 society require it. This argument is hypothetical and 
 fallacious ; and the best proof that it is so is the fact
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 87 
 
 that where it has been abolished, and imprisonment for 
 life substituted in its stead, the interests of society have 
 been as well protected as they ever were. 
 
 But why, say you, should the respectable portion of 
 the inhabitants be compelled to support for life the 
 criminal ? 
 
 If this be your argument, then, why not hang all 
 criminals, robber, and burglar, and forger, as well as 
 murderer ? This was at one time the law in England, 
 and yet you look back to that time with horror, pro- 
 nounce such laws barbarous, and the age in which they 
 were enacted uncivilized. And, notwithstanding, you 
 continue to hang murderers ! Is not hanging a relic 
 of barbarism? 
 
 You reply with the Bible an eye for an eye, a 
 tooth for a tooth. If you take those words literally, 
 we do not hesitate to pronounce them the law of 
 savages, the words of barbarism and not of humanity. 
 To our mind, they are not meant to be taken in their 
 literal sense, but merely as signifying the law of 
 redress or compensation, not the law of vengeance. 
 
 WHAT is the object of capital punishment ? Ven- 
 geance ? No ; the law is not revengeful ; the law 
 punishes no man from motives of revenge or malice. 
 No one will pretend that the law is vengeful. Will 
 any one say that the law hangs a criminal merely for 
 the purpose of taking his life ? No ! the law is rather 
 inclined to be merciful. 
 
 The object of capital punishment is to prevent crime. 
 Does it do so ? If it is terrifying, it has not shown 
 itself to be so ; for, take up your paper and see how 
 many murders you find recorded there. You say you 
 hang a man " as a warning to others." And how many
 
 88 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 men you have hanged as a warning to others ! And 
 with what result ? Is murder the less ? 
 
 We say that you cannot prevent crime. Men in the 
 heat of passion do not stop to think, and law cannot 
 so change human nature as to prevent men getting into 
 a passion. Men who will commit murder in cold blood 
 cannot be deterred by any fear of the law. Men under 
 the influence of evil passions will murder other men, in 
 spite of all examples, while humanity remains as it is. 
 
 If, then, you hang men " as a warning to others," 
 capital punishment has utterly failed of its object. 
 And we further say that criminals will be found to 
 prefer that the law should punish murder with death, 
 than with imprisonment for life; and for this very 
 simple reason, among others, it is in their favor in this, 
 that it gives them a loophole of escape. Juries are 
 averse to finding a verdict of murder in the first de- 
 gree. It is useless saying to them, " Think of the dead 
 man," when the living man is before them. It is use- 
 less saying, " You have only to bring in the verdict ; 
 you have nothing to do with the punishment." They 
 know and how can they help knowing it ? that it is 
 their verdict which condemns the man to death. And 
 so, wherever and whenever it is possible, a jury will 
 shirk bringing in such a verdict. This is the reason 
 why so many trials have been made mere farces by the 
 ridiculous and utterly absurd verdicts which juries will 
 bring in whenever it is possible verdicts totally un- 
 warranted by the facts and evidence. 
 
 " There are many questions," says a writer on this 
 subject, " where the accused is either guilty of murder 
 in the first degree, or not guilty at all. The known
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 89 
 
 bad character of the individual, the moral certainty 
 that he committed the crime, avail nothing with many 
 (the majority, say we) jurymen, unless something more 
 certain than the best circumstantial evidence is furnished 
 to convict him. They must either send him to the 
 gallows, or set him free to prey again upon society. 
 If the alternative were imprisonment for life, his con- 
 viction would follow, the jury feeling that he would 
 not be robbed of any slight possibility there might exist 
 of his proving his innocence afterward, and, at all events, 
 society would be no longer a sufferer through him." 
 
 But, you say, if we imprison him for life, he may 
 be pardoned soon after his conviction. To remedy and 
 prevent this, we answer, Take away the pardoning 
 power in such cases, unless where it is afterwards proved 
 that the prisoner has suffered an evident injustice. 
 
 That capital punishment that the effect of an exe- 
 cution, and the circumstances accompanying it is 
 demoralizing, cannot be denied. It has a tendency to 
 feed the lower and baser instincts of humanity, and to 
 deaden the finer sensibilities. And you will find by 
 observation that an execution is immediately followed 
 by one or more murders. 
 
 Unless the object of the law in continuing tjris relic 
 of barbarism, capital punishment, is merely to kill, or, 
 in other words, to murder with safety, then capital 
 punishment has undoubtedly failed of its purpose ; and 
 if, as we have endeavored to show, the substitution of 
 imprisonment for life would result in the better and 
 surer punishment of criminals, who now frequently 
 escape by reason of juries being possessed of human 
 natures, and also prevent all danger of persons being 
 8*
 
 90 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 hanged on strong circumstantial evidence, who may 
 afterwards be found to have been innocent (as in many 
 cases in bygone years), then undoubtedly capital punish- 
 ment should be abolished. 
 
 The worst use to which you can put a man, says 
 Horace Smith, is to hang him. 
 
 Let us try imprisonment for life. If the result 
 proves detrimental, is it not easy, if it becomes neces- 
 sary, to return to the old system ? 
 
 We know Frederick Wyndham to have been inno- 
 cent, but it must be remembered that at the time every- 
 thing was against him. There was only his own bare 
 assertion as to his innocence. What we know, was not 
 known then to the world. 
 
 The evidence was purely circumstantial, but it was 
 very strong. He was generally condemned as guilty. 
 Outside of his immediate friends, probably no one 
 thought him innocent. 
 
 He was a victim to circumstances, and to popular 
 excitement. 
 
 That the community thought him guilty, and believed 
 they were doing right in ridding themselves of this un- 
 fortunate man, there can be no doubt. For the sake 
 of humanity we must believe this. 
 
 And so he had met the death of a felon : this young 
 man who had such a joyful, happy prospect before hirn 
 so short a time previously. 
 
 He was not the only man who had been executed 
 for a crime of which he was entirely innocent ; nor is 
 it probable, while capital punishment continues in force 
 and men can be hanged on circumstantial evidence, he 
 will be the last innocent being to suffer death at the 
 hands of the law.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 91 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A BURGLAR. 
 
 IT is just one year to-day since Frederick "VVyndham 
 suffered the extreme penalty of the law. 
 May Derville and her parents had immediately after 
 the execution departed for Europe, and are now on their 
 way home. 
 
 Mary Farly is still with the Smithsons, but is to join 
 the Dervilles on their return, for she has promised May 
 to live with her. 
 
 It must be remembered that Mr. Smithson's cottage 
 stands alone, at some distance from any other habita- 
 tion. Ivy vines clamber up its walls, while immense 
 trees extend their protecting branches almost into the 
 windows. 
 
 It is night, and everything seems wrapped in slum- 
 ber. Not a sound disturbs the silence, with the excep- 
 tion of the rain, which has been pouring steadily down, 
 as if the floodgates of heaven had been opened, ever 
 since the break of day. 
 
 But, now, look closely. See that man's form steal- 
 ing slowly and carefully along. 
 
 He stops under that great tree by the side of the 
 cottage. You can scarcely see him in the darkness. 
 
 He looks around him cautiously and warily, every 
 sense on the alert. He listens intently, striving to 
 catch the slightest sound. It is easy seeing that his 
 presence here is for no good purpose. His every move-
 
 92 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 ment shows him to be one well acquainted with the 
 art if such it may be called of burglary. 
 
 If we may believe the gleam of satisfaction in his 
 eyes, he hears no sound except the incessant pattering 
 of the rain as it descends from on high, drenching him 
 to the skin. His object is plain. He is here for the 
 purpose of theft. 
 
 Now watch him. How nimbly, how like a cat he 
 climbs up the tree, hand over hand ! His foot slips, 
 and he feels a cold chill run through him ; but he re- 
 gains his equilibrium. A muttered curse escapes his 
 lips, and he stops to listen again. He seems satisfied. 
 
 He climbs out on the limb of the tree. He must be 
 careful ; the least false move will be his death. He dares 
 not look down below him for fear of becoming dizzy. 
 
 He extends one hand, holding fast with the other to 
 the branch, and gently attempts to raise the window. 
 There was no catch to it. It went up silently ; but, 
 nevertheless, he hesitated a moment before leaping into 
 the room. But the room is unoccupied. Evidently it 
 is a spare chamber for the use of visitors. 
 
 He is drenched to the skin, but he is in the room. 
 Thus far all has worked to his satisfaction. 
 
 " Now for it ! " he mutters in a tone of determina- 
 tion. 
 
 Cautiously opening the room door, he stands in the 
 hall and peers through the darkness. 
 
 With a noiseless tread he steals along, all the while 
 listening intently for the slightest sound. But, ha ! his 
 foot slips on something, and he stumbles. He curses 
 his luck inwardly, and remains perfectly motionless for 
 a few seconds.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 93 
 
 Has any one heard him ? 
 
 Yes ; slight as has been the sound, Mrs. Smithson, 
 lying awake in bed, has heard it, and is startled. 
 
 How is it that we can generally feel the presence of 
 a thief? 
 
 She awoke her husband quietly. 
 
 " There is some one in the house," she whispered. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " he answers, drowsily. 
 
 " I tell you there is ; I heard him stumble. Listen !" 
 
 Sure enough, now that his suspicion is aroused, he 
 can hear the stealthy footsteps moving along. 
 
 Quietly getting out of the bed, completely awakened, 
 he slips on his clothes, and, armed with a revolver, 
 noiselessly opens his room door, which the burglar has 
 passed, and stands in the hall. 
 
 He can perceive a man's form in the darkness before 
 him, and stealthily approaching, he creeps up behind 
 the intruder. The latter turns almost instinctively, 
 just as Smithson makes a spring and bears him heavily 
 to the floor, the barrel of his revolver shining in the 
 gloom. 
 
 There is not much of a struggle between them. 
 The burglar, completely surprised, and already weak- 
 ened from exposure and other causes, is easily over- 
 come. 
 
 A robber, as a general thing, is a coward. He is as 
 much afraid of you as you possibly can be of him. If 
 he can avoid it safely, he will not do you bodily harm ; 
 for, say what he will, however bad the law, he fears it. 
 Fear continually walks by his side. Corner him, how- 
 ever, and he will struggle with the desperation that is 
 born of that very fear. A cornered rat will turn at
 
 94 THE WOELD TO BLAME. 
 
 bay. It is the same with that other species of rat 
 the robber. If he can possibly escape without shed- 
 ding blood, he will. 
 
 It was desperation alone that enabled this burglar to 
 struggle the little he did. He had been taken by sur- 
 prise, from behind, and before he had time to recover 
 from the shock of the sudden attack, his opponent was 
 on top of him. 
 
 This opponent had many advantages. He was phys- 
 ically stronger, and, besides, he had a revolver, charged 
 with the leaden messengers of death, which was pointed 
 directly at the burglar's head, so that the latter could 
 almost feel the deadly weapon pressing against his 
 temple. 
 
 "Remain perfectly quiet not a movement, or I 
 fire ! " whispered Smithson, quickly, in a tone there 
 was no mistaking. 
 
 The burglar ceased to struggle, and wisely obeyed 
 his captor's command. His life was not one to be 
 envied, wished for, or enjoyed ; but it was life, never- 
 theless, and it was dear, and he clung to it. 
 
 It 's easy saying you 'd gladly die, 
 
 When death seems far away ; 
 But just wait till he comes to your bedside, 
 And see if you bid him stay ! 
 
 By this time the servants had been aroused, and, 
 though trembling with fright, they came, with lights, 
 to their master's assistance. 
 
 At Smithson's command a rope was quickly brought 
 to him, and the burglar speedily and securely bound, 
 hand and foot. 
 
 What was to be done with him now ?
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 95 
 
 They must wait for the morning ; so they carried 
 him in silence into the dining-room below. 
 
 They laid him on the floor. He did not speak ; he 
 had become sullen, moody, stolid. He only looked at 
 them as if to say : 
 
 " Well, now you have me, what are you going to do 
 with me ? " 
 
 It was at this moment that Mary Farly, alarmed by 
 the unusual disturbance, entered the room. 
 
 The state of affairs was quickly explained to her. 
 
 Then her glance fell upon the burglar. His eyes 
 were closed. 
 
 She pressed her hands to her temples and staggered 
 violently, and would have fallen, but that Mr. Smith- 
 son caught her in his arms. 
 
 Did she recognize the captive ? 
 
 " What is the matter, Mary ? " whispered Mr. 
 Smithson. 
 
 " It is nothing nothing ; only a sudden faintness," 
 she answered, with a painful smile. 
 
 But they could not help noticing her agitation, and 
 wondering at it. 
 
 The burglar opened his eyes and gazed full at her. 
 If she recognized him, evidently he did not her. All 
 his look said was, " Well, who are you ? " 
 
 But that look satisfied her, and set all doubts at 
 rest ; and, whispering to Smithson, she left the room 
 hurriedly. 
 
 He followed her. She stood in the hall near the 
 stairway. 
 
 " What are you going to do with him ? " she said, 
 hoarsely, pointing to the room.
 
 96 THE WOKLD TO BLAME. 
 
 " I don't know," he answered. " We will have to 
 keep him until the morning, and then deliver him up 
 to the authorities for trial." 
 
 " For trial ? " 
 
 There was something in her voice, as she repeated 
 the words, that made him look at her. She was deathly 
 pale, and trembling, as if with an ague. 
 
 " No ! no ! You must not you must not shall 
 not!" 
 
 " Shall not ? " he echoed in surprise. 
 
 " No ; for my sake. Oh, Mr. Smithson, bend low 
 your head ! He is he is " the remaining words 
 were whispered very faintly. 
 
 He had but time to raise his head when she lifted 
 her hand mechanically and fell swooning into his arms. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE END OP A SAD LIFE. 
 
 IT may be that in the lives of all of us there shall 
 be a day, to record the events of which would take 
 many pages of manuscript, while the balance of our 
 days could, as a distinguished lady novelist puts it, be 
 summed up in the simple phrase : 
 
 " This man or this woman continued to exist." 
 Therefore, as we are writing a life romance, we hope 
 the reader will not be surprised at rapid changes and 
 events, nor at the lapse of time between the various 
 scenes, to which we devote but a few words.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 97 
 
 It would be folly to describe every day, when it is 
 only a few of them that require our attention, so far as 
 this story is concerned. 
 
 It is some three weeks since the events recorded in 
 the preceding chapter occurred. 
 
 Whatever may have been the reason, the burglar had 
 not been delivered up to the tender mercies of the law, 
 for here he is, thin, pale, and emaciated, with the seal 
 of death resting on his face, under clean, white cover- 
 lets, with Mary Farly for his nurse. 
 
 Chilled and wet to the skin on that night when he 
 entered the Smithsons' cottage, it was no wonder that 
 when the morning broke, the burglar lay helpless in 
 the agonies of fever and delirium. 
 
 They carried him up to a spare room, and placed 
 him in the bed, and then sent for a disciple of Escula- 
 pius. 
 
 The worthy doctor examined his patient, and shook 
 his head gravely. It was a bad case ; and on this 
 morning he had taken Mr. Smithson aside, and said to 
 him: 
 
 " There is no use in my coming again. There is no 
 hope ; he cannot live. His constitution is completely 
 shattered and ruined, and he is a mere wreck. I can 
 do nothing more for him. He does not suifer much 
 bodily pain, but he cannot live more than a few days 
 two or three at the utmost. Let me know when he 
 is dead, and I will give you a certificate." 
 
 Smithson repeated the doctor's words to Mary Farly 
 very gently and tenderly. 
 
 He had expected her to be surprised and pained ; 
 but she listened to him very calmly. All she said was : 
 9 G
 
 98 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 " It is better for him and for me." 
 
 She is sitting by the window looking out upon the 
 bright day and the cloudless sky. Her day was once 
 bright, her sky once as cloudless as the sky she was 
 gazing on. And now, what a change, what a change 
 the last few years of her life had wrought ! 
 
 In the happy days of her childhood, those happiest 
 days of life to look back upon, when the world seemed 
 bright and fair to her inexperienced eyes, and misery 
 was a word unknown to her, could she have dreamed 
 that she would come to this ! 
 
 Ah ! life is a mystery, and death is its solution 
 the dream of life, and the awakening of death and 
 looking forward into the shadowy, unknown future, 
 which a wise Providence has veiled from our eyes, who 
 can say what changes time may make ? 
 
 Mark well the present, and seek not to penetrate the 
 mysteries of the future. The past is dead, the future 
 not yet born, but the present is before us here. Our 
 lives are to a great extent what we make them ; as ye 
 sow, so shall ye reap. 
 
 Mary Farly could not refrain from turning her eyes 
 upon the invalid, whose days were numbered, and 
 whose life-tide was ebbing fast, even as he lay there ap- 
 parently dozing, as she thought of those days which had 
 passed away forever. 
 
 Presently she arose and began walking or, rather, 
 pacing with an almost noiseless tread, up and down 
 the room, in the manner of one whose mind is dis- 
 turbed, and so, unconsciously, her thoughts found vent 
 in words : 
 
 " And it has come to this ! " she said, half aloud.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 99 
 
 " It has come to this, that all my dreams of happiness 
 have faded were but dreams and that life which I 
 had pictured to myself as beautiful and noble, a Utopia 
 of my imagination ; that I am doomed to bring only 
 misery to them who are so unfortunate as ever to love 
 me, and my life not only to be a curse to myself, but 
 also to others. Leslie Wyndham loved me ; he was 
 murdered, and his son hanged. And see him, my hus- 
 band husband still, despite all the suffering he has 
 caused me, for whom I rejected a noble love, and to 
 whom I have ever been true dying a thief, a common 
 thief! Why was I ever born ? What have I done to 
 deserve this punishment?" 
 
 But, see, look at the invalid leaning on his elbow, 
 his face full of agony, and his sunken eyes staring and 
 gazing at the woman who still continues her restless 
 pacing up and down the room ; those eyes which burn 
 like coals of fire, so full of memories of the past, as 
 they conjure themselves up in an instant; those eyes 
 so full of recognition. 
 
 He has heard every word she has uttered. They 
 have imprinted themselves indelibly on his brain, and 
 they almost set him wild. 
 
 He utters a hardly distinct groan. She turns to him, 
 and as he falls back upon the pillow, one word, full 
 of the most poignant anguish and self-reproach, escapes 
 his lips : 
 
 " MARY ! " 
 
 She looks on his pallid face and reads the truth 
 there. 
 
 It has come that which she has expected, has
 
 100 THE WOULD TO BLAME. 
 
 known must have come sooner or later. If he had not 
 guessed it, she would have told him ere death claimed 
 him as his own ; for she had felt it to be her duty to 
 disclose the truth the secret which had been preying 
 on her mind, and, in a few short weeks, made her ap- 
 pear aged. 
 
 Ever since that night when she had recognized in 
 the burglar, though he did not recognize her, the man 
 who was bound to her by the holiest of ties, the man 
 whom she had sworn at the altar to love, honor, cherish, 
 and obey her husband Mary Farly had undergone 
 in the solitude of her chamber an agony which few 
 people can appreciate, or are doomed to suffer. 
 
 She had asked herself time and time again, if she 
 had treated this man as she should have ; if she had 
 done her whole duty towards him, had acted rightly, 
 and for the best. She could not imagine how this 
 man, who had been born in the midst of luxury and 
 wealth, who had been tenderly reared, cultivated and 
 educated, who before his marriage had never known 
 the miseries of poverty, or aught of suffering ; whose 
 mind had been trained in the pathway of truth, honor, 
 and principle, but whose jealous disposition had been 
 his curse, could ever have fallen so low, could ever 
 have descended to the degradation of a common thief, 
 without honor, without principle, an enemy to others 
 and to himself; how he who had known a mother's 
 love, a mother's tender care and solicitude, and all the 
 comforts and pleasure that wealth could furnish, or the 
 mind desire, could ever have fallen so low as to become 
 a disgrace to her who bore him. Ah ! could that mo- 
 ther have foreseen that the son she idolized would come 
 to this !
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 101 
 
 Mary Farly did not know the worst yet the terri- 
 ble truth she was soon to learn ; but she asked herself 
 if she was not to blame, partly, for this man's down-r 
 fall. Had she not been in fault? 
 
 Had she done right in continuing on her terras of 
 intimacy with Leslie Wyndham against her husband's 
 express wishes and commands, thus encouraging and 
 feeding his jealousy ? She knew his disposition ; and 
 now, when it was too late, she looked back and asked 
 herself would it not have been better, and would she 
 not have been spared all the trouble and misery she 
 had known, had she obeyed his wishes for the time, 
 and by mild persuasion and gentle words, and all those 
 little arts which women know so well, have gradually 
 soothed his jealousy, until at length it wore off alto- 
 gether. Would it have worn off? Would he ever have 
 been freed from it ? That was not the question ; but had 
 she acted wisely, and done her whole duty ? Had she 
 done right in leaving him ? Had she done her best ? 
 had she tried her greatest to reclaim him from the 
 downward course into which his footsteps had strayed ? 
 Was she blameless ? 
 
 Ah ! it was too late now. The time when she might 
 have been able to have reclaimed him had passed away 
 forever. She could repent the folly of those days now, 
 but she could not call them back. 
 
 " Let him who is without sin among you cast the 
 first stone." We can never tell how we would act, 
 until placed in a position for acting. It is folly to say 
 we would do so and so in such and such a case ; only 
 when we are placed in the position can we know what 
 we will do. 
 9*
 
 102 THE WOELD TO BLAME. 
 
 And now the long separated husband and wife stood 
 face to face. What a lifetime they passed in that one 
 moment after he had said, 
 
 " Mary ! " 
 
 " You have recognized me at last," she said, trem- 
 blingly. " Oh, James, I knew you the very moment 
 my eyes fell on your face." 
 
 " And that is the reason why I was not given up to 
 the police," he murmured. " I see it now." 
 
 And then, in an eager, repentant voice, that went 
 straight to her heart, and his sunken eyes lit up with 
 all the old love and tenderness, he cried : 
 
 " Oh, Mary ! Mary ! can you forgive the past ? " 
 
 " It is for me to ask your forgiveness, James," she 
 answered, in a voice fraught with emotion. " I have 
 suffered oh ! so much from the thought that I have 
 not treated you rightly. I should have broken off my 
 friendship with Leslie Wyndham when you told me 
 to. But, oh, James, you did not know him. He was 
 honest, good, pure, noble." 
 
 A change came over him as she spoke of the 
 murdered man. He shuddered, and then said, bit- 
 terly : 
 
 " Why have you spared me ? Why did you ever 
 care for me? Why have you saved me from the 
 police ? I forgot that you are not my wife. I forgot 
 that you were divorced from me and married to him !" 
 
 " Who told you that ? " she cried. " It is a lie ! 
 He loved me, he aided me, he would have married me, 
 had I been divorced ; but I remained as I was your 
 wife ! " 
 
 He had half arose in the bed as she spoke, his sunken
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 103 
 
 eyes seeming as though they would start from their 
 sockets, and his features convulsed with unspeakable 
 agony. 
 
 He grasped her arm almost savagely, as she con- 
 cluded, and said, hoarsely : 
 
 " Xo, no ! it cannot be ! Say it is not so, Mary ! 
 For God's sake, say it is not so ! " 
 
 His vehemence, the tortured expression on his face, 
 startled and mystified her ; and for a moment she was 
 silent. Then she answered solemnly : 
 
 " It is the truth, James ; I swear it is the truth. He 
 was only my friend. You are dying, James, and I for- 
 give all the suffering you have caused me," 
 
 But his hand relaxed the savage grasp of her arm, 
 and he fell back, covering his face with both hands, 
 crying in agony : 
 
 " Good God ! Only her friend ! What have I done ! 
 Oh, God ! what have I done ! Mary, Mary ! God 
 help me ! I murdered him ! " 
 
 The truth flashed across her mind in an instant. 
 That which, when reading in a novel, she had deemed 
 utterly impossible, was not a fiction, but was a truth. 
 
 She started with horror. She could only utter one 
 word with white, blanched lips, while he moaned and 
 tossed about the bed in the most excruciating torture : 
 
 " YOU ! " 
 
 " Oh, Mary ! Mary ! forgive me ! You shrink from 
 me with fear ! Don't don't look at me so ! Have 
 mercy ! have mercy ! It is terrible ! oh, it is terrible ! 
 You tremble with horror ! Your husband is a mur- 
 derer! Oh, Alary! Mary! do not judge me too 
 hastily, too harshly. Listen to me; hear the whole
 
 104 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 truth. Oh, Mary ! I thought you were divorced from 
 me and married to him ! I thought he had wronged 
 me, and I was mad, mad ! Have mercy ! have mercy !" 
 
 And then he made a terrible confession that froze 
 the 1 blood in her veins as she stood before him, rigid, 
 motionless, as if carved out of stone. 
 
 When he had finished, she could have cursed him. 
 But, ah, even as the words are on her lips, the angels 
 of Love and Charity whispec in her ears, and beg her 
 not to speak them. They whisper to her to be calm ; 
 they tell her what she must do; they say, " Forgive, 
 as you would be forgiven." 
 
 And he is tossing wildly about in his agony, and 
 praying for her pardon. 
 
 " Oh, Mary ! Mary ! forgive me ! I am dying, and 
 I was mad ! mad ! Mercy ! have mercy ! " 
 
 Yes, he is dying, and she remembers the temptations 
 that have assailed him. Shall she withhold her par- 
 don from him now ? Shall she judge him when soon 
 he will stand before the throne of Him who alone can 
 rightfully judge ? 
 
 " The tempter is worse than the tempted," she says, 
 solemnly. " But it was murder it was murder 
 would have been murder, even if he had wronged you 
 in the most cruel way one can wrong another. You 
 had no right to take his life. If he had done wrong, 
 your doing wrong could not make that right. Murder 
 is murder, and only He alone who gave life has a right 
 to take it. No man has a right to take the preroga- 
 tive of God in his own hands, or to take the life 
 
 which he cannot return." 
 *******
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 105 
 
 She has called Mr. Smithson up. She has told him 
 all calmly, and of her intentions for the future. 
 
 James Farly's confession has been written out. The 
 pen is placed in his hand for signature, and he scrawls 
 his name with trembling fingers at the bottom of the 
 page. They sign as witnesses. 
 
 It is done ; and Mary Farly holds in her hand the 
 secret of Leslie Wyndham's murder, and the proof of 
 the innocence of his son. 
 
 " You forgive me, Mary, you forgive me ? " he cries, 
 wildly. " I loved you, oh, I loved you ! " 
 
 " You have sinned, sinned deeply. I, too, have 
 done wrong. I cannot judge you. If it will lighten 
 your sorrow, know that I forgive you. I have a duty 
 before me. I must clear Frederick Wyndhan's name 
 of the obloquy which we have helped cast upon it. 
 We are both to blame, and I hope God will forgive 
 you as I do. Pray to Him, pray to Him, in the few 
 short hours that remain to you." 
 **####* 
 
 She was sitting by the bedside watching him, when 
 she observed the change that was taking place. The 
 pallor of death was slowly creeping over his face. He 
 lay silently and quietly, holding her hand in his. She 
 felt his hand growing colder and colder. The old love 
 welled up in her heart as she gazed on the wreck of 
 the man she had known in happier days. The words 
 of the immortal bard came to her mind : 
 
 The evil that men do lives after them ; 
 The good is oft interred with their bones. 
 
 She had known suffering and agony, but what torture 
 must he have undergone ! Who can say ?
 
 106 THE WOULD TO BLAME. 
 
 Whatever of suffering this man had caused her, she 
 had known him when he was in the pride of manhood 
 and happiness; and in that solemn moment, in the 
 presence of the mighty bridegroom, Death, she forgave 
 him all. 
 
 He opened his eyes suddenly, and looked at her. 
 She stooped to hear what he might say. He essayed 
 to speak, but could not. She heard the death-rattle in 
 his throat ; he shuddered, and then she felt the hand 
 that held hers slowly relax its hold. She kissed him 
 once, while her heart seemed as if it was breaking ; a 
 smile of ineifable happiness passed over his face as 
 their lips met for the last time ; something like a sigh 
 escaped him, and then he was dead. 
 
 He, whose life had been embittered and wrecked on 
 the shoals of passion, died quietly, with a happy smile 
 on his face, as though he was passing into a delightful 
 dream. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 JAMES FAULT'S CONFESSION. 
 
 WE must reiterate that this is not a sensational story, 
 unless the truth can be said to be sensational. 
 We prefer to give James Farly's confession in our 
 own words. As he told it, the reader may easily 
 imagine that it was frequently interlarded by pitiful 
 cries and laments, and many words of poignant self- 
 reproach.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 107 
 
 We go back to that eventful night when James 
 Farly arrived at his wretched home, to find that his 
 wife had, at last, deserted him. 
 
 For some days after, he remained perfectly sober. 
 There was a sense of utter desolation about him. He 
 could not conceal the fact from himself that he was to 
 blame ; that he had himself to thank for what he now 
 suffered. 
 
 It is said that it is very easy to make ourselves be- 
 lieve that which we are anxious and desirous to believe. 
 So it is, but not immediately. When a man first dis- 
 covers himself to be in the wrong, he feels it, and no 
 amount of self-reasoning and conscience-bribing can 
 for some time afterwards make him feel satisfied that 
 he is or has been wholly right. 
 
 The first few days which followed that night were 
 spent by James Farly in ceaseless and constant brood- 
 ing. 
 
 The mind, sooner or later, is sure to become in a 
 manner more or less affected by the constant nursing 
 of one idea. This was the case with James Farly. 
 We have seen that, to use a mild phrase, he had always 
 disliked Leslie Wyndham. It did not take him long 
 to associate the cause of his wife's desertion with the 
 latter. He came to look on him as the cause of all his 
 troubles. The natural consequence was that in a short 
 time he had convinced himself that he was not at all 
 to blame, and that he owed all that had come to pass 
 to the man who, in his language, " had come between 
 him and his wife." 
 
 The future depended entirely now upon his advisers. 
 The reader has already obtained an insight into the
 
 108 THE WOULD TO BLAME. 
 
 character and nature of this man, and has seen how 
 weak-minded he was, and how liable, in consequence, 
 to be controlled by others. 
 
 This man, who had once known luxury and wealth, 
 soon became a beggarly outcast. The very people who 
 had praised and flattered him in his days of affluence 
 now passed him by without a glance of recognition. 
 The very men who had fed upon his generosity, even 
 his low associates, and the dealers in alcoholic poi- 
 son, refused to extend him a helping hand. He was 
 shunned like some loathsome viper, and the craving 
 appetite for drink once more came over him. Every 
 cent that he managed to earn by doing odd work went 
 into the till of some dram-shop. 
 
 Wandering, one day, into one of the lowest grog- 
 geries that abound in the not over-aristocratic purlieus 
 of Water Street, he was accosted by a man who, although 
 he will figure to a great extent in the events which are 
 to follow, it is as impossible for us to say who he really 
 was, as it would have been for any one who knew him 
 to have told. 
 
 He was one of those mysterious personages we some- 
 times meet, who, by some occult influence, manage to 
 gain access to the highest as well as to the lowest 
 circles of society. 
 
 This man had made the acquaintance of James Farly 
 long before the time of which we are writing, and with 
 that peculiar gift which some people have, had not 
 only read his character at a glance, but gained a power- 
 ful influence over him. 
 
 Now, nobody had ever seen Mr. Charles Williams, 
 as he called himself at this time, in a state of intoxica-
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 109 
 
 tion. He could be the gentleman among gentlemen, 
 and per contra. Everybody appeared to know him, 
 though to many, for various peculiar reasons that they 
 would not have cared to have made public, his acquaint- 
 ance was anything but desirable or advantageous. 
 
 Almost unconsciously to himself James Farly had 
 told Mr. Charles Williams his entire history. Mr. 
 Charles Williams had condoled with him, said he knew 
 Leslie Wyndham, and had assisted James Farly in hia 
 downward career. 
 
 It may readily be imagined that Mr. Williams was 
 not acting without a motive. He did know Leslie 
 Wyndham, or rather had known him, when he was not 
 passing under the name of Charles Williams. Leslie 
 Wyndham had come between him and an intended 
 victim ; had spoilt and foiled one of his long-cherished 
 " little games " just when he had imagined victory cer- 
 tain, and Mr. Williams had not forgotten it, though 
 many years had intervened since then. 
 
 He was a man who boasted that he never forgot a 
 favor nor forgave an injury ; a dangerous man, who 
 could wait for years and years, nourishing his hatred, 
 but never forgetting or forgiving ; a man who could 
 smile and laugh with you while murder was at his 
 heart. But he was a cool, cold-blooded, calculating, 
 prudential villain. Your ignorant, uncultured, savage 
 outlaw is not to be feared by the side of your educated, 
 heartless, plotting villain. The latter by his knowl- 
 edge and the main force of his mind can control a horde 
 of uneducated, depraved brutes. 
 
 While Mr. Williams, therefore, might have liked 
 nothing better than to have killed you, he could at the 
 10
 
 110 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 same time appear on 'the most friendly terms with yon, 
 for he was too prudent by far to run any risk that 
 might place his precious self in danger. 
 
 We are looking now, it must be remembered, at the 
 inside of this man's character, and not at the side he 
 presented to the gaze of the world. We desire to give 
 a good insight into his character, in order that you 
 may not be surprised at the events to follow; and we 
 desire it also to be remembered that what is here told 
 in a few words and in a few minutes was the work of 
 years, done slowly, step by step, and began by hints 
 which gradually shaped themselves into open words. 
 
 Mr. Williams, to continue, was an utterly unprin- 
 cipled man, with no thoughts of a future life, little 
 reverence for the Bible or the Creator; no thoughts 
 that were not for and of self; no feeling for any one 
 but himself. He had but one God, knew but one 
 power money. For that, could he have done so 
 without danger to himself, he would have waded 
 through blood. He was not afraid of hanging, but he 
 did not care for imprisonment. Hanging was soon 
 over; but why hang ? said he, philosophically. 
 
 He was a gambler and a cheat. He moved, in his 
 dual character, among the upper ten, and the lower 
 ten thousand ; played gentleman, gallant, aristocrat ; 
 gambler, villain, outcast, just as the occasion demanded. 
 
 And now to resume. James Farly had just been 
 refused the poison which his appetite craved, when Mr. 
 Williams entered the drinking den. 
 
 Williams was perfectly aware of all that had hap- 
 pened to Farly ; but it suited him best at that time to 
 be ignorant.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. Ill 
 
 " Ah ! Farly, you here ? " he exclaimed, taking him 
 by the hand, much to Farly 's surprise not only at 
 seeing, but at being recognized by him. " Hello ! 
 What's happened, old fellow? You look seedy 
 played out. Come ! this won't do. You should have 
 called on me; you know I am your friend. Come 
 along and let me know what 's up now. James Farly 
 begging for a drink ! and where they only sell slops ! 
 and I alive ! Come along, I '11 give you some of the 
 genuine Simon Pure." 
 
 Farly was only too glad to find a friend ; some one 
 who had known him in better days, and now grasped 
 him by the hand against which all men's hands seemed 
 to be turned. He had not expected Williams to recog- 
 nize him at all ; but it was not a dream. There was 
 one human being, at least, who still called him a friend, 
 and so he did not offer any remonstrances when Wil- 
 liams took him by the hand and led him out of the 
 vile hole. 
 
 Williams insisted on his right and privilege, as James 
 Farly's friend, to take care of and share his home with 
 him. And so he took him in charge. 
 
 Of course, that very evening the deserted husband 
 told his benefactor all that had happened. Williams 
 was not surprised ; he had expected such an ending. 
 He hastened to agree with Farly that Leslie Wyndham 
 was, to use his own words, " at the bottom of it." He 
 did everything in his power to inflame the passions and 
 the hatred of Farly against the journalist. 
 
 "We" (of course, whoever injured Farly injured 
 Williams) " have a score to settle with him some day. 
 We can wait ; that will make the interest on the debt
 
 112 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 accumulate. It is very simple to me excuse me for 
 talking plainly, old fellow she has left you to join 
 him. He will procure her a divorce somewhere, and 
 then marry her." 
 
 In this way the days passed by. Williams inducted 
 Farly into the mysteries of gambling, an art in which 
 he was aufait, always taking care to keep him in liquor, 
 and strengthen his hatred for Leslie Wyndham. 
 
 Gradually, and by degrees, the master villain un- 
 folded the plan his plotting brain had conceived, to his 
 yielding tool. It was a plan worthy of the man, and 
 at any other time would have made James Farly recoil 
 with horror, so deep and cold-blooded was it. 
 
 In substance, to make the story short, and expose it 
 in all its fiendishness, it was simply this : 
 
 Mary Farly, being the wife of Leslie Wyndham, and 
 in that case his only living near relation, with the ex- 
 ception of his son Frederick, in the event of his death 
 would inherit a great portion of all he possessed, 
 especially if his son was also "removed." The plan 
 was to murder Leslie Wyndham, to speak plainly 
 Mr. Williams used a much milder word which he 
 (Williams) would arrange so that no suspicion should 
 or could attach either to Farly or himself. This being 
 done, he contracted to throw suspicion upon Frederick, 
 and to cause his arrest and execution, the principal 
 object in doing this being to prevent the young man 
 from " causing us " (i. e., Williams and Farly) " any 
 trouble." Mary Farly would then come forward, of 
 course, and put in her claim to the estate. Then it 
 would be very easy to have the divorce set aside as 
 fraudulent, and Farly, by this means, would not only
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 113 
 
 accomplish his revenge, but also would obtain some- 
 thing more tangible. 
 
 All this was to be in consideration of Farly's sign- 
 ing a paper agreeing to give to Williams one-half of 
 what he would acquire, upon its completion, through 
 his wife.* 
 
 Williams did not fear that Farly would not carry 
 out his part of the contract; he was too well aware of 
 his power over his weak-minded tool to fear that. 
 
 This is the simple, unvarnished, bare synopsis of the 
 plain details of this devilish plot, however abhorrent 
 and incredible it may appear. 
 
 But it was necessary to find out first whether a divorce 
 had been procured or not. If it had, then Mr. Wil- 
 liams felt perfectly sure that Leslie Wyndham and 
 Mary Farly had consummated a marriage. 
 
 No divorce had been obtained in New York ; but 
 Williams did not imagine for a moment that it had. 
 He knew how much easier it was to obtain such a 
 thing in other States. In which, if any, had a divorce 
 been procured ? In order to ascertain this, both time 
 and money would be requisite. So far as time was 
 concerned, there was no difficulty; but it would, in all 
 probability, require more capital than either of them 
 possessed or might possess for months. The crafty 
 
 * It may seem rather strange that a man like Williams should have 
 been so ignorant of the law on the subjects upon which the ultimate 
 success of his plot depended, and that he should have remained so, 
 instead of informing himself what the law on those points really was, 
 as he could easily have done ; nor can we account for this, except on 
 the supposition that his principal and moving motive was to satisfy the 
 hatred he felt for Leslie Wyndham on account of the matters here- 
 inbefore mentioned, and the pecuniary object merely auxiliary. 
 AUTHOR. 
 
 10* H
 
 114 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 brain was not found wanting here, though. The capital 
 must be immediately acquired, and by robbery. 
 
 Mr. Williams selected a victim whom he knew 
 always kept a large sum of money locked up in a safe 
 at his house, and they agreed that in case of the detec- 
 tion, by any mischance, of either of them, he would re- 
 main silent in regard to the other. 
 
 This robbery was effected. Williams secured the 
 plunder, but Farly fell into the hands of the police. 
 He kept his agreement with Williams, and remained 
 silent. But, though ably defended, his trial resulted, 
 despite Mr. Williams' influence, in a conviction, and 
 sentence to five years' imprisonment. 
 
 Williams kept in constant communication with his 
 victim, telling him to keep up bravely in view of the 
 ends to be acquired, and that he had made a reserve 
 fund of the plunder they had obtained, and was wait- 
 ing patiently until he (Farly) was released. They 
 could afford to wait, he said, and let the interest accu- 
 mulate. 
 
 At the expiration of his sentence, Farly was liberated. 
 Williams was the first person to greet him. 
 
 These years, passed in prison, and in contact with 
 depraved associates and hardened characters, did not 
 do much to improve James Farly. This was another 
 debt to be settled with Leslie Wyndham. 
 
 He came out of the prison not reformed. If 
 prisons were made for purposes of reformation, they 
 utterly failed of their object with James Farly. He 
 came out hardened, depraved, more bloodthirsty and 
 hating, his better nature seemingly totally warped and 
 dead. He did not blame Williams as the cause of his
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 115 
 
 last degradation, but rather looked up to him, if that 
 was possible, more than ever. The weaker mind was 
 completely in the power and under the control of the 
 stronger. 
 
 The search for the divorce, which had been deferred 
 so long through his imprisonment, was immediately 
 begun. He was very impatient, and could not brook 
 delay. So they set out on their search and travels 
 within a week after his liberation. 
 
 They journeyed from one place to another, choosing 
 first the cities where Williams thought it most likely 
 the divorce, if there was one, had been procured. It 
 was slow, weary work, besides being expensive. Their 
 exchequer was fast becoming exhausted, and, as yet, 
 their trouble had all been in vain. 
 
 This consumed some time. They stopped, and 
 gambled with varying luck, at several places. But at 
 last they found it. Their journey was at an end ; their 
 untiring search was rewarded. There it was, the posi- 
 tive proof of Mr. Williams' conjectures. The date, 
 the year everything agreed. 
 
 " Mary Farly vs. James Farly. Divorce granted" 
 Thus spoke the record. 
 
 To New York again. They arrive, James Farly 
 brooding and nursing constantly that one idea re- 
 venge. Revenge on the man who had robbed him of 
 his wife, and made him what he was. Oh ! what a 
 glorious revenge his would be ! The words of the poet 
 did not recur to him : 
 
 Revenge is sweet is sweet ; 
 But it is a sweet poison ! 
 
 It was at this time that the haunted house opposite
 
 THE WOELD TO BLAME. 
 
 Leslie Wyndham's was taken by the two men, Philip 
 Marion and Thomas Castle, otherwise Charles Williams 
 and James Farly. 
 
 If the conversation in that house between them, 
 which has heretofore been recorded, was unintelligible 
 to our readers, they will understand it now. 
 
 Suspicion points strongly to Williams having had 
 an accomplice in Leslie Wyndham's house. Perhaps 
 this accomplice did not know his principal's object. 
 However that may be, it is certain, that by some means, 
 he possessed himself of the razor, which was afterwards 
 such a terrible piece of evidence against Frederick 
 Wyndham, and gained admittance to the house on the 
 night he had selected for the carrying out of his plot. 
 
 They were secreted in the house when Frederick came 
 in. After this they allowed a couple of hours to pass, 
 until all became silent again. Then, removing their 
 shoes, stealthily, in stocking feet, they entered their 
 victim's sanctum. They could hear his hard breathing. 
 
 James Farly, mad with the thought of his vengeance, 
 now so near at hand, passed into the room where Leslie 
 Wyndham was sleeping, clutching a heavy revolver by 
 the barrel, and gazed with a fiendish joy upon the un- 
 conscious sleeper's countenance. Not a spark of pity 
 moved him. There lay the object of his long pent-up 
 hatred ; there lay the man who had caused him all his 
 suffering the man who, he had persuaded himself, 
 had wronged him in the worst possible manner one 
 human being can wrong another. 
 
 It was at this moment that Leslie Wyndham opened 
 his eyes. They fell upon the demoniac face of the man 
 standing by his bedside.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 117 
 
 He recognized him instantly. Surprise, for the mo- 
 ment, deprived him of all power to follow his first 
 impulse, and cry out. The next instant James Farly, 
 with a muttered curse, was on him, one hand clutching 
 him with a grip of iron by the throat, and strangling 
 him. 
 
 Never for a moment, in the terrible struggle which 
 ensued, did the maddened man loosen his grasp of his 
 victim's throat. 
 
 The doomed man struggled desperately ; but not a 
 word could escape his lips. In his own house, at the 
 dead of night, he was being murdered, and could not 
 call for assistance. 
 
 This terrible battle for life was fought in silence. 
 James Farly dealt his victim blow upon blow with the 
 butt end of the revolver, and with all the desperation 
 of a maniac. 
 
 Williams sprang to his aid just in time. His hand 
 was relaxing its grasp of Leslie Wyndham's throat. 
 But the cry that arose to the lips of the poor victim 
 was stifled by a heavy, terrible blow on the forehead 
 from the revolver Williams carried. Stunned and 
 unconscious, but not yet quite dead, he lay completely 
 in his assassins' power. 
 
 James Farly would have stabbed him over and over 
 in his blind fury, had not the more prudent villain 
 withheld him, and bidding him not to let the blood 
 spurt on his clothes, handed him Frederick's razor. 
 
 The madman quickly and with all his strength drew 
 it across Leslie Wyndham's throat, severing it from 
 ear to ear. 
 
 Then, when the bloody deed was accomplished, they
 
 118 THE WOULD TO BLAME. 
 
 inflicted stab after stab on the poor body, being careful 
 not to get any bloodstains on themselves. This was 
 done for the purpose of making it appear that the assas- 
 sin's clothes must, necessarily, have become stained 
 with blood, and that it did so, was sufficient proof of 
 Mr. Williams' sagacity a quality he greatly prided 
 himself upon. It was his boast that he always " cov- 
 ered his footsteps." 
 
 Mr. Williams turned his attention, when all again 
 was silent, to the safe. He easily found the key in the 
 murdered man's coat-pocket. 
 
 The safe was open ! Before him was the object of 
 his worship, gold ; yet he did not touch it. No ! He 
 commenced ransacking and tossing the papers about, 
 to give the impression that the assassin's object was to 
 secure a particular paper, and not robbery. How well 
 he succeeded we know. 
 
 At last he came across the document he had hoped 
 to find. It was endorsed, " Last will and testament of 
 Leslie Wyndham." 
 
 His success was, so far, all that he could have de- 
 sired. He thrust the will into his capacious coat- 
 pocket, and having seen everything placed in the 
 position in which he wished them to be found, and 
 followed by James Farly, who had, during the whole 
 time his confederate was operating at the safe, re- 
 mained gazing with a savage smile on the face, gashed 
 and mutilated, of the man whom he had murdered, 
 constantly murmuring, " Revenged ! revenged ! " left 
 the house in the same silence and secrecy in which 
 they had entered it. 
 
 What followed has been heretofore detailed.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 119 
 
 In the immediate excitement, Mr. Williams man- 
 aged, by the same covert means which had enabled 
 him to obtain it, to secrete Frederick Wyndham's 
 razor in the place where it was afterwards found. 
 
 Before proceeding further to carry out his scheme, 
 Mr. Williams had the prudence to allow some days to 
 elapse. 
 
 Of course, no suspicion entered any one's mind 
 when Philip Marton said he "would like to have the 
 villain who did it, that he might torture him to death 
 by inches." 
 
 Why should any one suspect the rich, elegant 
 Mr. Marton ? But it was Mr. Marton who industri- 
 ously circulated the hints in regard to Frederick 
 Wyndham, who started never-sleeping suspicion, and 
 who caused the articles we have quoted from to be in- 
 serted and circulated by the press. 
 
 As we know, everything worked to his entire satis- 
 faction, and James Farly (otherwise Thomas Castle), 
 now returned to his old state of continual intoxication, 
 gazed on the master villain with a feeling akin to, if 
 not exactly awe. 
 
 But when time passed, and Mary Farly did not 
 come forward to lay claim to the murdered man's 
 estate, Mr. Philip Marton grew uneasy, and when a 
 still further time elapsed and the public administrator 
 took charge of the effects, he became more and more 
 uneasy. 
 
 Suddenly a new thought struck him. In the ex- 
 citement of the moment he had forgotten to make any 
 inquiries as to the Mary Farly who had procured a 
 divorce, and now it flashed across his mind that it
 
 120 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 might, after all, have been a simple coincidence. 
 Determined to find out and satisfy himself at once, he 
 took a trip, keeping Farly in ignorance of his object, 
 to the city where he had found the record. It proved, 
 of course, as he had feared. All his trouble and 
 plotting had been wasted and in vain. But there was 
 no use in repining or cursing his luck, and he imme- 
 diately returned to New York. He said nothing what- 
 ever on the subject, but immediately proceeded to rid 
 himself of his blind follower. 
 
 Left alone again, and completely in the other's 
 power, James Farly rapidly sank to the level from 
 which Mr. Williams had taken him. He dared not 
 think, but drowned brain and memory in the alcoholic 
 poison. 
 
 It was in this state of degradation and abject 
 poverty that he planned the robbery of Smithson's 
 cottage, which, as has been seen, resulted in his de- 
 tection.* 
 
 * In closing this chapter, we desire to say that we are fully aware 
 of the inconsistency between the "cool, calculating, prudential 
 villain " we have said Mr. Williams was, and his character as viewed 
 solely in the light of the part he enacted in the murder of Leslie 
 Wyndham. His whole plot was founded on suppositions which, how- 
 ever, after the finding of the record of divorce between Mary Farly 
 and James Farly, had, with him, as much weight as truths ; his ideas 
 of the law were incorrect, and his manner of proceeding rather 
 strange. But is there any accounting for the inconsistencies of 
 human nature, and do we not often find the wisest men making 
 the most simple errors ? 
 
 The only way in which we can account for Williams falling into 
 these errors is, as we have before stated, on the ground that his prin- 
 cipal and moving motive was to satisfy the hatred he felt for his vic- 
 tim, and that the pecuniary motive, strong as that was with him, was 
 merely auxiliary. This is the only explanation we can give, and if 
 the reader thinks it worse than none at all, and wonders why we
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 121 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SELF AND DUTY. 
 
 SUCH, in short, was the substance of the terrible 
 confession which James Farly made with his dying 
 breath and signed with his last strength, in the pres- 
 ence of the woman who was his wife and the friend 
 whom his victim had provided for her. Such was the 
 paper which Mary Farly carried in the bosom of her 
 dress, and which proved the innocence of the law's 
 victim the victim of popular excitement poor, 
 ill-fated Frederick AVyndham. 
 
 What a great task this confession imposed upon 
 Mary Farly ! It rested on her to prove the innocence 
 of Frederick Wyndham, and to rescue his name from 
 the obloquy which was now attached to it. 
 
 The long and terrible struggle between self and 
 duty carried on in her breast in the silence of the long 
 night which followed James Farly's decease, left an 
 impression that only death eradicated. 
 
 Self asked her why she should trouble herself 
 further? The dead could not be recalled to life. 
 
 could not have constructed this story so as to have prevented our 
 feeling any necessity for this note, we can only reiterate that ours is 
 a matter-of-fact romance, and that all the events narrated in this 
 chapter have actually occurred and passed into history, and that the 
 only deviation from the facts which we have made has been to change 
 the names of the parties, and the fate, or, rather, the lives of the 
 murderers after accomplishing their crime. 
 
 In the case in which the facts here related came to light, they were 
 both tried, found guilty, and executed. AUTHOR. 
 11
 
 122 THE WOULD TO BLAME. 
 
 Why inflict suffering on herself? Why not let the 
 whole thing rest where it was, to be buried in oblivion, 
 and let the dead past bury its dead? Duty, in its 
 stern, unwavering voice, whispered, " Spare not thy- 
 self! You have been an innocent cause of their death. 
 On you rests the responsibility of clearing the mystery, 
 whatever of suffering it may entail on you, whatever 
 sacrifices you may be compelled to make. They who 
 conceal a crime are as bad as they who commit it. 
 Will you regard yourself, or will you think of the 
 dead, and the duty you owe to God to see that inso- 
 much as lies in your power j ustice is done ? " 
 
 If she regards the voice of duty, she must find 
 Philip Marton, and compel him to verify James 
 Early 's confession; for otherwise it was not and could 
 not be complete. It would be merely regarded as the 
 ravings of a madman or as a sensational story. But 
 to find Philip Marton what a hopeless task this 
 seemed ! She must find a man she had never, to her 
 knowledge, seen, and of whom she had not the slight- 
 est description. Even his name, like a kaleidoscope, 
 was constantly changing. And this man, too, was no 
 ordinary person. 
 
 Self cried again and pleaded strongly. Duty, un- 
 compromising and immovable, repeated, "Spare not 
 thyself!" 
 
 Oh, what agony, what misery, what torture she suf- 
 fered that night ! Years passed in minutes. But, with 
 the help of Him who ruleth, self was flung aside, and 
 duty conquered. 
 
 Will she find Philip Marton ?
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 123 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 "DUST THOU ART, TO DUST RETURNETH." 
 
 HI HE hot summer's day is drawing to a close. Slowly 
 J- the great Sun, gleaming like a ball of fire, is set- 
 ting in the distant west, tinging the horizon with a 
 reddish golden hue; the pale Queen of Night can 
 be faintly seen gazing at her king whose reign is end- 
 ing. The air is redolent of a soft, rich sweetness ; the 
 perfume of the tuberose is borne on the cool, refresh- 
 ing breeze that ever and anon rustles the leaves of the 
 majestic oak, and sways the slender branches of the 
 mourning weeping willows. No sound disturbs the 
 quiet ; everything is still and silent as they who rest 
 calmly here sleeping the never-ending sleep, for this is 
 a city of the dead. Here and there the rays of the 
 setting sun fall on a cold white monument of marble 
 which marks the resting-place of somebody's dead. 
 
 " Sacred to the memory of ," we read, and know 
 
 that some poor mortal has passed before the judgment- 
 seat of his Maker. 
 
 What was his life ? Was he happy, or was it his 
 happiest moment when they brought him here and 
 covered him with the mother earth from which he had 
 sprung ? 
 
 After all, what a frail tenement we live in ! what a 
 short lease we hold ! 
 
 We are born, we laugh, we weep, 
 We love, we droop, we die.
 
 324 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 What are our thoughts as we gaze on this home of 
 the dead? Here is a proud, tall monument; there, 
 only a small mound with a number written on a piece 
 of wood thrust into the earth, tells who sleeps beneath 
 to them he has left behind to mourn him. Even in 
 this sacred place the pomp of wealth rears its head. 
 
 What are we thinking of? This is no place for 
 earthly thoughts; angels are guarding this spot. 
 Thoughts of death and the mystery which must for- 
 ever remain unsolved, the mystery of the Hereafter, are 
 uppermost in the mind now. 
 
 We look upon the heavens, 
 
 And they are clear and blue, 
 And in the liquid ether the eye 
 
 Of God shines through. 
 
 All earthly things are forgotten in the presence of 
 the kingdom of Death ; these are holy images that flit 
 before us now. 
 
 How quiet all is ! We are breathing a holier, purer 
 atmosphere here ; for this short time let us think of 
 God. Soon we must go back and commingle with the 
 world ; here let us rest and think. 
 
 To this complexion we must come at last. 
 
 Poor, proud mortals ! What are ye in the presence 
 of Death ? What are ye that ye should dare dispute 
 His words? 
 
 Oh! come with me here; let us not disturb the 
 silence. We are out of the world now : this is a better 
 place ; this spot is holy ground ; angels hover over it ; 
 God is here.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 125 
 
 No more; they who sleep here have done forever 
 with care, suffering, passion. The world is naught to 
 them; it cannot injure, it cannot help them. They 
 have parted with life and trouble ; no care, no grief, 
 no sorrow, can reach them now. He who sleeps beneath 
 this grand monument is no better than he who rests 
 beneath this simple mound ; they are equal. Poor and 
 rich stand alike in the presence of God; all are His chil- 
 dren, for His is the kingdom of heaven, and He is Love. 
 
 Are we thinking of those exquisite lines of the poet's 
 inspired pen ? 
 
 The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 
 
 The swallow, twittering from the straw-built shed, 
 
 The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 
 
 ******* 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 
 Alike await th' inevitable hour. 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Can storied urn, or animated bust, 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? 
 
 Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, 
 Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death ? 
 
 No further seek his merits to disclose, 
 
 Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, 
 
 (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) 
 The bosom of his Father and his God. 
 
 How grandly beautiful the poem is ! We can close 
 our eyes and see the picture so faithfully described 
 before us. 
 
 We can see God in everything ; but it is the grave- 
 11*
 
 126 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 yard that makes us think of Him ; it is the graveyard 
 that inspires solemn thoughts, for here we are amidst 
 them who have breathed and lived with us, and who 
 have solved the mystery of the hereafter, which it 
 remains for us, sooner or later, to solve. 
 
 But, hark, here comes another funeral cortege. 
 Here is the carriage of death containing all that re- 
 mains of a human being the poor clay followed 
 by the mourners. They are few. The chief mourner 
 is a woman, robed in black death's insignia. The 
 marks of care and sorrow are indelibly impressed on 
 her brow and face ; no tears are in her eyes she can- 
 not weep. Her grief is too deep for tears they are 
 denied her. Does she grieve the less that she does not 
 weep ? No ! no ! Grief which can find vent in tears, 
 finds relief. Grief which is hidden from all eyes save 
 God's is all the more felt. 
 
 See ! they stop. And now they take the coffin from 
 the hearse and bear it along the pathway. The sun's 
 rays fall on a little group standing around a new-made 
 grave. 
 
 The holy words of God are solemnly spoken. The 
 last look upon the face of the dead has been taken. 
 The features are calm in their repose. He seems to be 
 sleeping. This is death ! 
 
 The lid of the coffin is screwed down, and the face 
 is hidden forever. Slowly they lower the narrow, last 
 home that he shall ever know. It is small ; he wants 
 no more. * * * It is done. The earth falls upon 
 the coffin with a rattling sound ; the grave-diggers hide 
 it from sight. The mound is formed, the last dread 
 ceremonies are over.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 127 
 
 Silently the mourners turn. They have left him 
 here. The rumbling sound of the carriage wheels dies 
 out in the distance ; all is silent again. 
 
 The moon is rising higher and higher; the sun is 
 sinking deeper and deeper in the horizon. 
 
 All is quiet. He is at rest. No more suffering, no 
 more care, no more anguish, no more passion. Death 
 has conquered all. There is rest for him at last rest 
 in the grave. 
 
 See ! the day is nearly spent ; and as the king of 
 light sinks behind the reddish, golden-hued clouds, his 
 last rays fall upon the new-made grave, where reposes 
 all that remains of him who was once known as James 
 Farly. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE LION OF THE DAY. 
 
 FIVE years have passed since James Farly took 
 his last look of " earth, and sun, and day," and 
 Mary Farly, sitting alone at the window of this grand 
 mansion, hears the sounds of laughter and mirth of 
 the gay party enjoying themselves beneath her, and 
 thinks of the past. 
 
 Her eyes are fixed on pale Luna, surrounded by her 
 satellites, and sailing over the cloudless sky in all her 
 soft brilliancy. 
 
 Five years have passed since her husband's death, 
 and what has she accomplished towards the object for
 
 128 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 which alone she lives ? Nothing ! absolutely nothing ! 
 All her endeavors to trace and discover Philip Marton, 
 since she has made her residence with the Dervilles, 
 have been in vain. She is as far from him as ever, 
 and she has almost given up the search for him in 
 despair. There is everything here to make her happy ; 
 they are all very attentive to her. Poor May, who, 
 with the elasticity of youth, aided by the great con- 
 soler, Time, has recovered in great part from the 
 shadow which had threatened to blight her life forever, 
 clings to her with a daughter's affection. Her every 
 wish has but to be expressed to be gratified. She has 
 everything in the way of comfort that she can desire, 
 and yet she is not happy. Her youth has passed away, 
 and she is growing old ; indeed, she looks years older 
 than she really is. But the peace which she had hoped 
 to enjoy in her age is denied her. The grave alone 
 offers her rest. Yet she must live live to redeem 
 Frederick "Wyndham's name. His life is gone; it 
 cannot be given back to him. All that she can do is 
 the mockery of removing the obloquy attached to his 
 name, and which otherwise always will be. 
 
 And here she sits alone, heedless of the gay party 
 dancing, laughing, joking, flirting, and amusing them- 
 selves beneath her. These amusements have lost all 
 charms for her. She has feigned an excuse to be left 
 alone. 
 
 The parlors are crowded with gay merry-makers of 
 both sexes; for this is the night of May Derville's 
 party. 
 
 Her parents have done everything in their power to 
 keep her thoughts from dwelling on the sad fate of her
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 129 
 
 dead lover and with partial success. They rightly 
 thought she was young and might meet another to suit 
 her fancy, and marry yet. Another person thought 
 so, too. 
 
 But, see, the dance is over; and now, while some 
 promenade up and down the spacious parlors, the 
 others seat themselves and engage in conversation. 
 They are all apparently enjoying themselves. But 
 where is May ? If you will come with us, you will 
 see her, a shawl wrapped around her petite form, en- 
 joying the evening air, and talking seriously with the 
 attentive gentleman who sits by her side on the bal- 
 cony Mr. Charles Wilton. 
 
 Mr. Wilton is the " lion of the day," as they say in 
 society. He has been paying his attentions to the 
 young heiress for some time, and it is whispered that 
 he is a favored one. 
 
 Bright and cultivated, able to converse on almost 
 any subject, witty, sarcastic, polite, said to be wealthy, 
 besides being handsome and a character in his way, 
 Mr. Charles Wilton was the centre of attraction wher- 
 ever he graciously deigned to make an appearance. 
 
 Singular to say for ladies' favorites are not gen- 
 erally liked by their own sex Mr. Wilton was a 
 favorite with everybody, ladies and gentlemen alike. 
 
 To May Derville he was an enigma. She both 
 respected and admired him. He exercised over her a 
 strange and utterly inexplicable influence. She liked 
 to converse with him and draw out his opinions and 
 ideas on various subjects ; and while she often differed 
 with him, she always listened to his remarks with 
 deference and attention. 
 
 I
 
 130 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 " You ask me, Miss Derville," he was saying, " for 
 my opinions in regard to religion. It is a subject 
 which I never care to discuss, because it is unsuscep- 
 tible of positive proof. I would rather, therefore, talk 
 of anything else, unless, using a lady's prerogative, 
 you insist." 
 
 " I would like to know what you think on the sub- 
 ject, very much, Mr. Wilton," she answered ; " but, 
 of course, if it is objectionable to you we will let it 
 drop." 
 
 " I see you are too polite to insist, while you ar- 
 dently desire to know," he said, smiling. "Am I 
 not right?" 
 
 " I confess you are," she replied, frankly. 
 
 " As an Indian would say, Miss Derville, your 
 tongue is straight." 
 
 " Thanks for the compliment. I always endeavor 
 to speak plainly, though, I have been told, it is not 
 always the best policy." 
 
 " When people speak out plainly, and say what they 
 mean, my dear Miss Derville, all danger of a mis- 
 understanding is avoided ; and, therefore, as you de- 
 sire it, I cannot be so ungentlemanly as to deny your 
 request, for I am always happy when I can do any- 
 thing for you. I know that, however ridiculous my 
 opinion may appear to you, you will not laugh at me." 
 
 " You are very complimentary, Mr. Wilton ; but 
 you underrate yourself. You always speak so wisely 
 and are so well informed on everything, that it gives 
 me great pleasure to listen to you and try to com- 
 prehend, by means of the little brains I have, your 
 meaning."
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 131 
 
 "You cannot take more pleasure in listening to me, 
 Miss Derville, than I take in conversing with you. 
 Ladies (excuse me for disparaging your sex) are, as a 
 general rule, so frivolous and unable to say anything, 
 so false is the education they usually receive, ex- 
 cept about dress, fashion, and other kindred subjects, 
 that most men of mind hesitate before saying anything 
 to them of a serious nature. This is the reason why 
 your scholar is not generally a ladies' man. But you, 
 Miss May, are an exception to the rule. It is well to 
 be able to suit one's self to the capabilities of every 
 one ; to be able to talk fashion, to say silly words, 
 nonsense, little nothings, and to converse on serious, 
 sober, intellectual subjects; it all depends on the per- 
 son you are speaking with, and a man or woman who 
 is able to suit himself, or herself, to others and to cir- 
 cumstances is pretty certain to be a general favorite." 
 
 " While I partly agree with you," said May, " I yet 
 must differ. There are plenty of women who are just 
 as capable as men ; and while there are any number 
 who are as you say, you must yet remember that the 
 greater proportion of your own sex are no better. I 
 repeat, then, that there are any number of women fully 
 as capable as men, only " 
 
 " Only, like the needle in the haystack, they are 
 hard to find. But then, again, probably these capable 
 women, I suppose, may have the same idea of my sex." 
 
 " The fault is more with the parents than with the 
 children, I think, Mr. Wilton." 
 
 " In that regard you are, to a certain extent, right. 
 The children of the poor in many cases are taken away 
 from school at an early age, being compelled to work
 
 132 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 for a living, while others never go at all. The chil- 
 dren of the rich, again, are often humored too much. 
 A parent is apt to believe a child, without listening at 
 all to the teacher. This works a vast amount of harm, 
 for the teachers in a private, fashionable school, to 
 which the greater number of wealthy people, especially 
 if they be shoddies, send their children, or else have 
 teachers at home, know that they are dependent upon 
 their scholars, who are consequently apt to take ad- 
 vantage of their situation. For this reason I think 
 public schools are greatly to be preferred. There is 
 one thing, however, which I never thought proper, 
 and that is the habit of making teachers presents. 
 Not that I begrudge the teacher, whose life, at the best, 
 is a hard one ; but the poorer scholars, who are either 
 unable or to whom it is a great burden to contribute 
 to make the teacher a present, are, in a manner, looked 
 down upon by their richer classmates, and favoritism 
 is apt to be shown. Besides, it hurts the feelings of 
 the poor, and we should always regard the feelings of 
 others. There are a great many corrections needed in 
 our present educational system, and the first remedy 
 should be to make education compulsory." 
 " I agree with you there, Mr. Wilton." 
 " Another thing, Miss Derville. Children, especially 
 young girls, are taken from school too early, and when 
 their education is merely if I may use the phrase 
 glossed over. They know a little of this, a little 
 of that, and nothing perfect. They are taught too 
 much at once; too much entirely. And in respect 
 to young girls, they are too early, as the saying is, 
 brought out. For instance, the other day I called on.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 133 
 
 an old lady friend, whom I had not seen in some years, 
 and there met her daughter, a young girl of, I should 
 judge, seventeen. In the course of conversation, I re- 
 marked to the daughter, ( I suppose you have almost 
 finished your studies?' She arose, apparently greatly 
 insulted, and left the room. I was at a loss how to 
 account for her strange behavior until her mother 
 apologized for her, and told me that Cecilia was en- 
 gaged. I was surprised. A young, child-looking 
 girl, who could not possibly know her own mind and 
 should have been at school, engaged to be married ! 
 Yes, it was true. Did she know what she was going 
 to do ? Had she any idea of the solemnity of mar- 
 riage ? Not the least. To her it was a great thing 
 a matter for the envy of others. She had been brought 
 up in a fashionable school, where the only things 
 taught were dress, fashion, and hurry-up-and-get-a- 
 husbaud-or-you-will-be-an-old-maid. That was the 
 great thing don't be an old maid ! How many 
 unhappy married men and women there are in this 
 city to-day, the result of such thoughtlessness, I need 
 not tell you. People marry nowadays just as they 
 would do anything of oh-nothing-at-all importance. 
 Afterwards, when the romance of the affair is dispelled, 
 they find that what they imagined love was merely 
 fancy. I might say much more on this topic, but it is 
 going away entirely from the subject we first broached. 
 To return, then, to religion. ' Let me premise by in- 
 forming you, that you may not deem me a hypocrite, 
 that I do not pretend to be religious or to always 
 practise what I preach ; it is so much easier preaching 
 
 than practising. When you ask me for my opinions 
 12
 
 134 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 on religion, I tell you, not perhaps what I do, but 
 what I think proper and right. First, then, religion 
 is simply a matter of belief of faith ; for without 
 faith, there can be no religion, but only hypocrisy. 
 There are any number of religious sects, each one 
 worshipping in its own peculiar way. They all, how- 
 ever, worship a being they term God ; so you see, it 
 all amounts to the same thing. Each day in the week 
 is a Sunday to some one of these sects a day set 
 apart for the worship of a being termed God. Now, 
 it cannot be doubted that religion is a preventative of 
 crime. Were it certain that when a man dies, that is 
 the end of him, numberless men who now, through 
 fear of punishment hereafter, even if they escape here, 
 remain upright in action, if not in thought, would be 
 great criminals. Now, in every religion, whatever the 
 belief may be, I can find much that is good and much 
 that is bad; and while religion has worked a vast 
 amount of good, it has also worked a vast amount of 
 bad or, rather, I should say it is fanaticism that has 
 worked the bad ; but fanaticism has been the offspring 
 of religion, even if religion that is, some beliefs 
 do not teach it. No man has a right to say to another, 
 * You are wrong and I am right ; mine is the only true 
 religion?' Why, my dear Miss Derville, I know of a 
 case where, incredulous as it may appear to you, one 
 man said to another, ' My dear sir, I like you very 
 much as much as any one I know and I am sorry 
 for you, for you know you do not believe right and so 
 are doomed ' well, to say it politely, to go below 
 stairs, where the thermometer ranges well up in the 
 hundreds."
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 135 
 
 Miss Derville smiled. Mr. Wilton continued : 
 " Now, this man undoubtedly believed what he said 
 and thought himself religious. But was he ? What 
 right had he to judge? Why could not the other have 
 said the same to him with equal propriety? What 
 right has either of them to say the other is wrong ? 
 None, none, whatever. It is against the spirit of true 
 religion. No man has the right to say to another that 
 his religion is false. He cannot positively prove it; it 
 is simply a matter of belief. Am I right ? " 
 " I think you are." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 HOW CRIMINALS ARE MADE. 
 
 THIS question of religion, Miss Derville," continued 
 Mr. Wilton, "has puzzled greater minds than 
 mine. The more we discuss it, the more bewildered 
 we become. It is for this reason that I never care to 
 argue it. One who allows his thoughts to dwell on it 
 too much becomes morbid, perhaps fanatic, perhaps 
 insane. There is only one solution of it. We must 
 accept much that appears improbable without question 
 or inquiry. We can all believe what we choose ; it 
 concerns ourselves, and is our own business. It is this 
 spirit of proclaiming ourselves right, and all who be- 
 lieve otherwise wrong, that has caused all the religious 
 persecutions history records, and has promoted atheism. 
 And I am pained to say that my experience has shown
 
 136 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 me that even now, in what we call the nineteenth cen- 
 tury of civilization, bigotry exists to an alarming ex- 
 tent, and sectarian prejudice is still very great. We 
 look on past ages as barbarous and uncivilized. Future 
 ages will look back on us in the same light, and just as 
 justly, for civilization never ceases, and the day is sure 
 to come when the entire world will be of one and the 
 same faith and belief as regards religion, and future 
 generations will wonder how we of to-day could ever 
 have been so diverse in our religious opinions, and yet 
 have called ourselves civilized, when bigotry existed 
 among us." 
 
 "Yes; that is doubtless true, Mr. Wilton. But, 
 pardon me if I interrupt you. Suppose we go back to 
 the starting-point, as we will be missed soon, if we are 
 not already, and you have not as yet told me what your 
 belief is." 
 
 " I will tell you first what I do not believe. I do 
 not believe in the man who keeps up to the strict tenets 
 of any religion, while, at the same time, he does not 
 believe in one-half of them. The world may call him 
 religious, because he attends church regularly ; but I 
 call him a hypocrite. Hypocrites are detestable." 
 
 "Especially religious hypocrites." 
 
 " Well, then, Miss Derville, I consider a man re- 
 ligious who keeps up to those principles which appear 
 right to him, and who does what he thinks right 
 not does so because he is told to, but because he believes 
 it right." 
 
 " I must differ with you there, Mr. Wilton, because 
 then the murderer might call himself religious, for he 
 could say he thought he was right."
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 137 
 
 "Ah! excuse me for telling you that you fall into 
 a too common error. Let me ask you one question. 
 Do you think it possible for a man to commit a crime, 
 and say that he thought he was doing right ? " 
 
 Well " 
 
 " Yes excuse me for interrupting you, Miss Der- 
 ville he might say so, but would he believe it? could 
 he convince himself that he honestly thought so ? " 
 
 " Well, you know, Mr. Wilton, we can generally 
 make ourselves believe whatever we wish to." 
 
 " That is partly true. But we often try to convince 
 ourselves we are right, when we know and feel we are 
 wrong. We try to quiet the inner voice. Now, I am 
 going to ask you a startling question. For myself, I 
 answer no. Do you believe in a hell ? " 
 
 " No, I do not. Hell is our guilty conscience. It 
 may sleep sometimes, but it must awake at last." 
 
 " But some people have no conscience." 
 
 " Do you think so ? I do not. They try to" make 
 themselves believe they have it not, because it sleeps, 
 and does not disturb them. But it must awake some 
 time, and then they suffer the torments of hell." 
 
 Mr. Wilton smiled. 
 
 " That may and may not be," he said ; " however, 
 some people suffer so much on earth that it is impossi- 
 ble for them to suffer worse tortures hereafter." 
 
 " Why, the world is good." 
 
 "True too good for the people who live in it. 
 But now you have heard my views on religion, what 
 think you of them?" 
 
 " I agree and I disagree. But talking of murderers, 
 what think you of them ? " 
 12*
 
 138 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 " When there is no crime, there will be no world. 
 Crime seems to increase as civilization advances. 
 Why, there are from twenty to thirty thousand pro- 
 fessional law-breakers in this city to-day." 
 
 " As many as that?" 
 
 " Yes, fully. And the statistics show that this class 
 is constantly increasing, and becoming greater in 
 number, year after year." 
 
 " And what is the cause of this continual increase ? " 
 
 "Poverty is one cause; and the richer the world 
 becomes the greater poverty there is in it. But there 
 are many causes which a lady cannot be told. How 
 poverty is one cause can easily be explained. If we 
 examine our criminal statistics, and the lives of prob- 
 ably one-half of our criminals, we will find this to be 
 
 the case : Mr. B, is a man in the middle class of 
 
 life, in moderate circumstances. He becomes reduced, 
 and very poor. In an unguarded moment he commits 
 forgery, or a theft perhaps to keep his family from 
 starving. You see our law is so curious that a man 
 who steals a loaf of bread is often more severely 
 punished than one who takes life." 
 
 " I am very greatly interested. Please continue." 
 
 " Well, say even in a moment of passion he com- 
 mits murder. He is arrested, tried, sent to prison for 
 a number of years ; or, in case of murder " 
 
 " Suffers death." 
 
 "Exactly. The law punishes him; but not only 
 him. His wife, his three young sons, aged between 
 five and eight, and a daughter, say of four years, suffer 
 for his crime also." 
 
 " It is hard ; but it must be done."
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 139 
 
 " Wait ; allow me one moment, please. Left with- 
 out any one to support her or her family, too proud 
 for the poor as well as the rich are proud, Miss Der- 
 ville too proud to go to the almshouse, not willing to 
 part with her children, and naturally feeling bitter 
 against them who, as she says, ' knowing not poverty/ 
 have deprived her of her only support shunned, 
 pointed at as the wife of a criminal, she can obtain no 
 work, for no one will trust her can you not imagine 
 the sequel, Miss Derville, or shall I tell you ? " 
 
 " I had rather you would tell me." 
 
 " She rebels against the law. The serpent is ever 
 near, watching ; the three young boys, and the little 
 girl, from that time are brought up in an atmosphere 
 of sin, with society's outcasts for companions ; they 
 come of age ; what should be the happiest period of 
 their lives gone, and themselves, though young in years, 
 old in crime. In this manner the criminal classes re- 
 ceive three new males, and, who are infinitely more 
 capable of doing mischief, two female members." 
 
 " What you tell me is horrible," said May, im- 
 pressed by his manner quite as much as by his words. 
 
 " Truth is stranger than fiction, Miss Derville. 
 What I have told you is true ; I know it." 
 
 " But, Mr. Wilton, surely you would not have us 
 allow criminals to escape all punishment, simply be- 
 cause they may happen to have wives and children ? " 
 
 " Assuredly not ; but I would have the law provide 
 for fhe wives and children." 
 
 " Why, there are plenty of places " 
 
 " But they are too proud to go to a public charity- 
 house. The law should look after and care for them
 
 140 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 see that the children are properly educated. But I 
 cannot explain my whole meaning to you, or my plans, 
 just now. Some other time, if you desire it, I may. 
 I will only say that the money this would require 
 would be insignificant in comparison to the benefits 
 society would derive from it." 
 
 " Well, I will not trouble you any further at pres- 
 ent. Only one question more : Do you think a person 
 could commit murder in cold blood ? " 
 
 " Certainly I do. But, come, it is growing chilly. 
 Allow me to escort you inside." 
 
 Arm in arm they entered the brilliantly lit up par- 
 lors, while all eyes were turned significantly on them. 
 
 Before retiring that night, May detailed to Mary 
 Farly her whole conversation with Mr. Wilton. 
 
 "I cannot but agree with him in some respects," 
 said Mrs. Farly. "I would like to see this man, who 
 seems to be the lion of the day. But I cannot agree 
 with him that a human being, possessed of a rational 
 mind, and in full control of the senses with which God 
 has endowed him, could commit murder in cold blood. 
 The idea is, to me, at total variance, and incompatible 
 with any opinion of human nature not in itself de- 
 praved and bad. The man may appear perfectly sane 
 may commit murder simply for money yet his 
 mind is to some degree diseased. But you should not 
 think of such subjects, May; you should enjoy your 
 life." 
 
 "Yes," thought May, "that is always it. We 
 should be happy, and not give a thought to the miser- 
 able, or for their welfare. I know Mary does not mean 
 that; but such is the opinion and advice of the world."
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 141 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ALICE. 
 
 IF the outside of this tenement-house is miserable 
 in the extreme, and seems to be hesitating whether 
 to tumble down or remain standing, the inside is not 
 much better. It is literally swarming with human 
 beings, from the prattling child to the decrepit old 
 woman. 
 
 In one room sits a woman plainly attired. There 
 is a sad look in the deep blue eyes, and the marks of 
 suffering are plainly discernible on the face. It is 
 apparent that her life has not been a smooth one, and 
 that, as she sits idly here, she must once have been 
 very beautiful. Her beauty has not entirely faded yet. 
 Evidently she is expecting a visitor and has nerved 
 herself for a bitter struggle. 
 
 " I love him ! I love him so! " she murmurs. " He 
 cannot, oh, he must not desert me ! No ! no ! " 
 
 Presently the room door opens, and a man enters 
 into the wretched apartment. He advances towards 
 her with open arms, as if expecting her to fly into 
 them. But he is disappointed. She does half arise, 
 as if to give way to her inclination ; then, as some bit- 
 ter memory comes to her, she sinks back into the chair 
 and allows her hands to drop idly upon her lap. 
 
 A look of surprise is in his eyes as he bends over to 
 kiss her ; but she turns her face away and motions him 
 off with her hands. His look changes into one half 
 of fright and half of pain.
 
 142 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 " Why, Alice ! " he says, reproachfully. 
 
 But sh6 only straightens herself up, looks him full 
 in the face, and says simply but, oh ! so bitterly : 
 
 " So you have come ! " 
 
 " Alice ! " 
 
 There is a twinge of pain in his voice that touches 
 her. For a moment she seems ashamed of the cold 
 way in which she is treating him ; and then, recovering 
 from the almost irresistible impulse to rush to him and 
 cry on his breast, she steadies her nerves again. 
 
 " Be seated/' she says, curtly, motioning him to a 
 chair. 
 
 " Alice, what 's got over you ? Is this the way you 
 treat me ? And you said you loved me ! Is this the 
 reception I am accorded from you ? " 
 
 A bitter struggle takes place within he'r upheaving 
 bosom ; a wave of passion sweeps over her, and then 
 is gone. 
 
 " I despise you ! " she says ; but the words almost 
 choked her. 
 
 The look of pain deepens in his eyes. His voice 
 trembles as he speaks. 
 
 " You ! Alice, you ! you say that to me ? Very well. 
 I am going. Farewell ! " 
 
 He turns around, places his hand on the knob of the 
 door, then faces her again, and repeats : 
 
 " Farewell, Alice." 
 
 He half opens the door. She seems to be in a trance ; 
 but, suddenly, she rises, rushes to his side, grasps his 
 arm, and says, hoarsely : 
 
 " Stay, John, stay ! " 
 
 He makes a movement as if to clasp her in his arms.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 143 
 
 At the action she conquers her emotion, steps back and 
 says, corumandingly : 
 
 " Sit down ; I have much to say to you." 
 
 He obeys her in a bewildered manner, as if puzzled, 
 and at a loss how to account for her strange conduct. 
 
 She closes and locks the door, and then comes and 
 stands in front of him. 
 
 " Alice," he says, " your conduct is utterly inexpli- 
 cable to me." 
 
 "Then listen to me, John," she replies, "and see if 
 it is not justified. Look at me. Look at the wreck I 
 am. I was young, and pure, and beautiful, they said, 
 when I first met you. I loved you, John, and you 
 told me that you loved me. I, poor fool, believed 
 you ; I believed in all your promises : I obeyed you, 
 and did what you wished. I would have thought any 
 sacrifice easy to have won your love. God pity me ! 
 I left home and parents, friends, for your sake ; I lost 
 honor; I became a social outcast for your sake. All 
 these sacrifices willingly I made because I loved you; 
 and, in my blindness, I thought you loved me " 
 
 "Why, Alice " he interrupted. 
 
 " Wait, and hear me through," she said, in a voice 
 that trembled slightly with passionate emotion. "Only 
 a few short years ago I was pure, I was happy, I was 
 beloved ; now I am lost, I am miserable, I am un- 
 loved!" 
 
 It is impossible to describe the tone in which the last 
 words were said. It was full of a hopeless despair. 
 
 " Alice ! " he interrupts again, and the one word 
 speaks volumes. 
 
 "Oh, John!" she continues, unheeding his inter-
 
 144 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 ruption, " I gave up everything that made life dear 
 for your sake because you promised to marry me. 
 Day and night I have worked aiid slaved for you. I 
 have tried to make you happy ; I have done every- 
 thing you asked of me because I was to be your 
 wife." 
 
 " And so you will be, Alice." 
 
 "So I will be! How often you have said those 
 words to me ! How can I believe you ? Will you 
 come and marry me now ? " 
 
 " Alice, you doubt me. Oh, Alice ! you doubt me ; 
 and I have been working all these years for you. No, 
 no you do not love me." 
 
 Either the man felt what he said, or else he was a 
 consummate actor. 
 
 " Oh, John, do not say that ! do not say that ! You 
 know I love you ! " she cried, giving away to her feel- 
 ings at last. "But why not marry me now? It would 
 make me so much happier." 
 
 "Alice, I cannot at present." At the words she 
 regained her self-possession. 
 
 " Yes ! " she said, sternly, bitterly. " That is always 
 your answer Not at present! And meanwhile you 
 are plotting to rid yourself of me ; meanwhile you are 
 paying your attention to others, and I am deserted ; I 
 am cast off like an orange out of which all the juice 
 has been sucked." 
 
 He whistled a long, prolonged whistle, that told 
 he had discovered the cause of her strange conduct. 
 
 " Oh, ho ! " he laughed. " Why, Alice, jealous ! 
 Now, now, my pretty girl, jealous ! Why, Alice ! " 
 
 " Jealous ! " she cried, passionately. " Have I not
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 145 
 
 cause to be jealous ? I tell you that I love you ; I 
 love you who has ruined me, and you shall not desert 
 me ! No, no, never ! never while I live ! " 
 
 " Now, Alice, if you are through, probably you will 
 give me a chance to explain," he said, quietly. " It 
 is useless getting into a passion ; it does no good. Be- 
 sides, you do not know what you say in your anger, 
 and may repent it. Come, sit down by me, and 
 listen!" 
 
 She obeyed him. 
 
 " Now, Alice, I want to make a fortune, so that 
 when we marry we can enjoy ourselves. You are a 
 good girl and have done all that I have asked of you. 
 I have always tried to please you " 
 
 " And yet you go there day after day of late, and I 
 am left alone ! " 
 
 " Now, Alice, don't be jealous ! If I go there, it is 
 for your sake. Never mind. Some day you will 
 thank me for it. I go to see her father on business, 
 and cannot avoid seeing her ; and yet here you are, 
 jealous of me. Come now, Alice, be a sensible girl, 
 and make it all up." 
 
 If he was lying, his lies had the tone of truth. 
 
 She flung her arms passionately around his neck, 
 and kissed him over and over again. 
 
 " Oh, John, forgive a poor, miserable creature like 
 me, who loves you so," she sobbed. " It was cruel in 
 me to doubt you ; but I loved you, John, and I could 
 not bear to think of parting with you." 
 
 " There, there, my little girl ! don't let it worry you. 
 Don't cry, Alice ; I love you ; I shall not leave you. 
 Only have faith in me." 
 
 13 K
 
 146 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 " Oh, yes, John, I will ! " she replied, and a smile 
 of happiness was in her eyes that lit up her counte- 
 nance with a holy look. Poor, poor thing! Well 
 might she have said with the poetess : 
 
 And darest them speak of faithlessness and him 
 In the same idle breath ? Thou little knowest 
 The strong confiding of a woman's heart 
 When woman loves as I do. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A CHANCE MEETING. 
 
 IT was a habit which Mary Farly had formed, since 
 she had found a home with the Dervilles, of making 
 once a week, regularly, a charity excursion ; that is, 
 having found out a number of worthy families in 
 straitened circumstances, she took them in charge, 
 and saw that they were provided for, and many were 
 the heartfelt blessings showered on her head. 
 
 l^Hers was true charity, simple and secret. She did 
 not believe in charity that was ostentatious ; for, as she 
 said, while it doubtless did a great deal of good, it was 
 not true charity. 
 
 " The man or woman," she was wont to say, " who 
 finds out a number of poor, worthy people and assists 
 them to the extent of his or her ability, is far more 
 charitable, in the true sense of the word, than they who 
 erect large buildings, so that it may become known,
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 147 
 
 and refuse assistance to the poor who come begging to 
 their doors. While these people do good, their object, 
 in almost every instance, is not charity, but self." 
 
 In these excursions she was generally accompanied 
 by May ; they served to keep her thoughts from rest- 
 ing on herself; but on this day, one week after the 
 event related in the last chapter, we see her setting out 
 alone. 
 
 We do not mean to detail her many visits, or the 
 welcome and blessings she received. These poor, 
 simple people regarded her in their enthusiasm as a 
 guardian angel, and could not imagine that she was a 
 human being like themselves, and that she was poorer 
 and more miserable in many respects than even they 
 were. 
 
 It was late in the day, when, on her mission of love, 
 she entered the miserable tenement mentioned in the 
 preceding chapter. There lived in this wretched place 
 one family who were the recipients of her charity. 
 
 It was after she had attended to their welfare, and 
 had descended the stairs and stood at their foot on the 
 landing, that a door in front of her opened, and a man 
 emerged into the entrance-way and passed hurriedly 
 out. His exit was followed by the sound of a fall and 
 sobbing. 
 
 Probably these sounds were of such frequent occur- 
 rence that none of the miserable inmates of this 
 wretched habitation saw anything unusual in them, 
 or paid any attention to them. Misery and poverty 
 go hand-in-hand together ; and people have enough 
 troubles of their own without attending to others'. At 
 least this seemed to be the motto here. But to Mary
 
 148 THE WOELD TO BLAME. 
 
 Parly these sobs seemed to come from a breaking heart, 
 and she could not resist the temptation to inquire into 
 their cause, and comfort the miserable being from 
 whom they came, if that were possible. 
 
 It was well for her that she did so, and it was by one 
 of those strange fatuities that can only be accounted for 
 as Providential that she entered the room from whence 
 the sobs seemed to come. 
 
 It was a miserable place; but the sight that attracted 
 Mary Farly's attention was not the wretchedness and 
 poverty that was everywhere visible, but a woman, who 
 had slipped from off the miserable apology for a chair, 
 and with her face buried in her hands knelt and sobbed 
 as though her heart was breaking. Her form shook 
 like a reed in the wind, and her moans seemed as 
 though they could have melted a heart of stone with 
 pity. 
 
 "Ah, me!" murmured the sympathetic intruder. 
 " Misery, misery everywhere ! None so poor, but others 
 are poorer." 
 
 Then she advanced and laid her hand on the miser- 
 able creature's shoulder gently. 
 
 " My poor woman," she said, " don't cry so. I am 
 your friend. Tell me what I can do to comfort you." 
 
 But the woman's sobs only came the faster and more 
 hysterically. 
 
 "Leave me alone," she moaned. "Oh! leave me 
 alone. I wish I was dead ! oh ! I wish I was dead ! " 
 
 " No, no, my poor woman ; don't say so. Don't 
 talk so wildly. It is wrong, it is wicked to wish your- 
 self dead. Come, calm yourself. Look up, and let 
 me comfort you."
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 149 
 
 " No ! no ! I am miserable ! Oh ! I am so miser- 
 able ! There is no comfort for me here ; there is no 
 comfort for me ! " 
 
 " There is comfort for all who do not refuse it. 
 Come, let me be your friend ; won't you ? " 
 
 Perhaps it was the sincere tone in which the words 
 were said, or perhaps it was an instinctive feeling that 
 the speaker was really a friend, that caused the woman 
 to suddenly hush her sobbing, and look up at Mary 
 Farly. 
 
 As their eyes met, they both started with a move- 
 ment of violent astonishment. One look but one 
 and they were locked in each other's embrace. 
 
 "Alice!" 
 
 " Mary ! " 
 
 That was all that passed between them for some 
 minutes. 
 
 They had met met for the first time since the 
 happy hours, long, long ago, when they had known 
 each other as school-girls. These two women who 
 had known each other in better, happier days, when 
 life had been a pleasant dream ; when they, as class- 
 mates and loving friends, had romped together in the 
 old school-yard, and who had lost sight of each other 
 during many long years which had intervened since 
 the happy days of their girlhood met again, but, oh ! 
 iu what different circumstances ! met again, but under 
 what a different aspect ! 
 
 Those had been days of happiness and affluence ; but 
 now, oh ! now, what a change ! 
 
 Who can tell what the impenetrable future holds iu 
 store for us ? 
 13*
 
 150 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 And so they had met these two, who had known 
 each other as girls ; who had speculated on the future ; 
 who had laughed, and played, and romped together ; 
 who had compared their thoughts, and unfolded their 
 plans, and entrusted their little secrets to each other 
 these two, whose lives had opened so auspiciously, and 
 under such bright aspects ; for whom the future had 
 seemed to hold only happiness ; whose life-paths had 
 diverged, but who had both trodden the thorny path, 
 met again as women. 
 
 There was much to be told, much to be said on both 
 sides. But it was Alice who, after they had recovered 
 from their surprise, and had become familiar again, 
 first told the history of her life since they had last seen 
 each other. 
 
 Can it not be guessed ? It was nothing new, nothing 
 strange; the same old, every-day story, that, alas, is so 
 familiar to almost every one. Who has not heard that 
 
 old story, 
 
 So old, so old, 
 So often told, 
 
 the story of a pure, trusting heart, which loved not 
 wisely, but too well the story of 
 
 The cat and dove 
 Of man's deceit, and woman's love ? 
 
 There is no need of repeating it here. 
 
 " Last night," she concluded, while a burning blush 
 suffused her cheeks, " he was here. Oh, Mary, I had 
 never seen him so before. He was always temperate, 
 calm, collected never in a passion; but last night 
 something must have disturbed him greatly, for he did
 
 THE WOULD TO BLAME. 151 
 
 what he never had done before talked in his sleep. 
 I heard every word he said, and, oh, how they crushed 
 me ! He was planning to rid himself of me. I was 
 a burden to him I, who had done so much, and 
 would do even more, if it were possible, for his sake. 
 Oh ! Mary, you cannot imagine what I felt ! He said 
 he must rid himself of me ; that she loved him, and 
 he would marry her, and so become rich ; that his 
 plans must succeed. To-day, we had a quarrel, and 
 he has left me in anger. Oh ! Mary, Mary, what shall 
 I do? What shall I do?" 
 
 She sobbed hysterically again. 
 
 " Come, now, Alice," said Mary Farly, soothingly, 
 " don't give way so. Cheer up, for my sake. Tell me 
 who this girl is, and I will see her ; and if she is at all 
 honorable, she will let him go." 
 
 " No, oh, no j he would blame me for it ; he would 
 hate me ! " moaned the unfortunate woman. 
 
 " He need never know, Alice, who told her. Be a 
 brave woman, and tell me who she is." 
 
 " I will tell you her name. She is rich, she is happy, 
 she is far above me. But you must promise me that, 
 whatever may come, you will shield him from harm." 
 
 " What ! Alice, you love him still ? And after 
 what he has done to you ? You love him still, and he 
 so unworthy ? " 
 
 She bowed her head, and answered in a low voice : 
 
 " I love him still. Don't chide me, don't blame me, 
 don't ask me why ; I only know I love him ; I always 
 will love him while I live." 
 
 Yes, she loved him. This man had betrayed, had 
 ruined her; had blasted her life, and made her an out-
 
 152 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 cast; this man had made of her the miserable being 
 she was, and yet she loved him. It mattered not what 
 he had done, she loved him. Is it not strange that a 
 woman's best affections, a woman's love should be 
 lavished on so unworthy an object; that she should 
 cling to him who had ruined her, and robbed her of 
 all that made life worth the having ? But who can 
 account for that most strange and inexplicable of all 
 passions Love ? 
 
 " She speaks the truth," Mary Farly said pityingly 
 to herself. " She loves him still." 
 
 "But, Alice," she said aloud, "you must tell me 
 you owe it to yourself to tell me, if you know the 
 name of this girl. You owe it to her." 
 
 " I know it ; I know it. But I cannot, oh, I can- 
 not, have harm come to him through me ! " 
 
 " Alice, you are foolish. I insist upon knowing this 
 girl's name ! " 
 
 " Promise me, then," begged the miserable woman, 
 " that no harm shall come to him. Promise me that 
 you will shield him from all danger, all harm." 
 
 " I promise you, Alice, that I will do all in my power 
 to help him, though he is so unworthy. I will do it 
 for your sake." 
 
 The woman recovered her composure. 
 
 " I believe you, Mary," she said. " I will trust you, 
 and tell you her name." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " May Derville ! " 
 
 Can we portray the astonishment of Mary Farly ? 
 
 "May May Derville!" she exclaimed. "Are 
 you sure?"
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 153 
 
 "lam." 
 
 This necessitated a short explanation from Mary 
 Farly. It was now Alice's turn to be surprised. 
 
 " You live there ? " she exclaimed ; " You live with 
 them ? Oh ! then you have seen him. Promise me 
 you will not harm him." 
 
 " I have already given you my promise, Alice. But 
 you forget that I do not see one-half of the gentlemen 
 who visit her, and you have not told me his name." 
 
 " He passes under the name of Charles Wilton, T 
 believe." 
 
 "Charles Wilton!" 
 
 What ! the pet of society ; the elegant, accomplished, 
 admired Charles Wilton? Was she dreaming, or did 
 she hear aright ? Was it this man could it be this 
 man who had ruined her girlhood's friend ? There 
 was no room for doubt ; she was not dreaming ; she 
 had heard aright. 
 
 Strange ! the many and various palpable contradic- 
 tions of human nature! But, then, had not Mr. 
 Charles Wilton himself said that he suited himself to 
 others, and to circumstances? and that it was easier 
 preaching, than practising ? 
 
 This was a day of surprises ; but the greatest one 
 was yet in store for her. 
 
 She hid her feelings as best she could from her com- 
 panion, and said, calmly : 
 
 " You say he passes under the name of Charles 
 Wilton?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I have heard of him. What is his true name? " 
 
 " I knew him first as John Brady ; but I know he
 
 154 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 has passed under many names at different times, and 
 if that be his right name or not, I cannot tell." 
 
 " Can you tell me some of the names he has been 
 known by, Alice ? " 
 
 " Yes. Before I knew him I have ascertained that 
 he used the names of William Johnson, Charles Wil- 
 liams, and Philip Marton." 
 
 Was it a wonder that Mary Farly started so violently 
 in astonishment? 
 
 " Charles Williams Philip Mar Mar ! " she 
 gasped. 
 
 "Philip Marton," repeated Alice, looking on in 
 silent amazement. 
 
 Mary Farly trembled like an aspen. The room 
 reeled before her eyes, and she came near fainting. 
 The shock was almost too great. 
 
 She had found him ! found him after years of patient 
 wearing, watching, and searching found him, and 
 by a mere accident ! 
 
 What great things what great discoveries have 
 been the result of just such simple accidents? 
 
 She had searched, and searched, and hunted for this 
 man for years without success, but to find him at last 
 by a mere chance-meeting. 
 
 "God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to 
 perform," she thought, when she had recovered her 
 composure somewhat. 
 
 " You know something," Alice exclaimed, in alarm. 
 "Tell me what is it?" 
 
 Should she tell her ? No ! she would spare her that. 
 She had promised not to harm him, and she would be 
 true to her word if he would do what she would ask
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 155 
 
 of him and he must. He should not escape her 
 now now, when God had given her her reward ; 
 when, as by a miracle, he had been delivered up to her. 
 
 " It 's nothing, Alice," she replied ; " I am subject 
 to these spells." 
 
 "I have found you," she thought. "At last! at 
 last!" 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CAUGHT. 
 
 THE elegant Mr. Charles Wilton, attired becom- 
 ingly in the height of fashion, and twirling a short, 
 plain-looking cane between his fingers, ascended the 
 dignified-looking stoop, and pulled the silver-plated 
 bell-knob. 
 
 The girl who opened the door stood as if entranced 
 for a moment at sight of him ; the look on his face was 
 full of such a quiet resolve and self-complacency. 
 
 "Is Miss Derville in?" he inquired, removing his 
 hat with gentlemanly politeness. 
 
 " If you will walk in the parlor, please, sir, I will 
 see," she answered. 
 
 The elegant Mr. Wilton walked into the sumptuous 
 parlors, while the girl ascended the stairs and knocked 
 at the room-door on the second floor. 
 
 Three women were in the room, all pale, and seem- 
 ingly in suspense May, Alice, and Mary Farly. 
 
 " Mr. Wilton," announced the girl, and withdrew.
 
 156 THE WOELD TO BLAME. 
 
 Poor Alice came near fainting. 
 
 " Courage ! " said Mary Farly to her. " Be brave 
 and ready when I call. Do not let your fortitude 
 desert you." 
 
 The elegant Mr. Wilton meanwhile, sitting in ex- 
 pectation in the parlor, heard the hall-door open and 
 close, and a few moments later, a woman whom he did 
 not know Mary Farly appeared before him. 
 
 He arose politely, rather disappointed. 
 
 Be careful, now, Mr. Wilton ! You will need all 
 your assurance to support you ; you have to battle with 
 a woman ! 
 
 " Mr. Wilton, I believe," she said, calmly, " I have 
 often heard Miss Derville speak of you." 
 
 Mr. Wilton bowed. 
 
 " I am highly flattered by Miss Derville's notice," 
 he said ; " but, madam, is she out ? " 
 
 " She is not well, sir, and sent ine in her stead. Be 
 seated, please." 
 
 He seated himself. 
 
 " I have often wished to meet you, sir," she con- 
 tinued, watching him narrowly. " My name is Mary 
 Farly." 
 
 As a rule, this man had complete control over him- 
 self: but that name, so fraught with bitter recollec- 
 tions, was one that he had not forgotten ; and it came 
 so by surprise and so unexpectedly upon him, that he 
 could not suppress his astonishment. 
 
 His first feeling was fear. He was tempted to fly. 
 But, apparently, she was not paying him any atten- 
 tion ; and so he restrained himself. Did this woman 
 know him ? Impossible ! It was an accident merely 
 a chance-meeting.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 157 
 
 He mumbled over some undistinguishable words, 
 and then sat perfectly still, though his heart was beat- 
 ing violently. 
 
 " I have often heard you were a learned man, Mr. 
 Wilton," she said, calmly, " and I have come to ask 
 your advice. I have a short story to tell you." 
 
 She recounted to him James Farly's confession. 
 His face became livid in hue all this was so unex- 
 pected and startling ! He looked at her. She was not 
 noticing him ; no, she did not know him. He must 
 be calm. 
 
 " You see," she concluded, " I have promised not to 
 harm him, unless he forces me to extreme measures. 
 Now, what shall I do?" 
 
 Somewhat reassured, he answered as calmly as pos- 
 sible under the circumstances : 
 
 " Having found this man, madam, you ought to see 
 him, and compel him to do what you desire." 
 
 She arose and drew a small table on which was 
 pen, ink, and paper in front of him ! 
 
 He sat still and motionless half paralyzed ; he 
 could not have stirred one step at that moment. 
 
 "Then," she said, firmly, "Mr. Charles Wilton, 
 alias Charles Williams, alias Philip Marton, write a 
 confession of the part you enacted in the murder of 
 Leslie Wyndham ! " 
 
 He remained motionless ; no chains could have bound 
 him more securely to his seat. 
 
 " Madam ! " burst from his pale lips, "I I do 
 not understand you ! " 
 
 " Come, sir," she said, firmly as before, " I. have no 
 time to waste. Be wise and write ! 
 14
 
 158 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 " Madam ! " he stammered again, "I I you 
 mistake " 
 
 " I do not mistake, sir ; I know you ! Alice ! " 
 
 At the call the woman entered. She was deathly 
 pale, and trembling. 
 
 At sight of her his color seemed to turn to a ghastly 
 green. For perhaps the first time in his life he lost 
 all his self-possession. He was lost ! Caught, at last, 
 by a woman ! 
 
 What followed was the work of an instant was 
 like a flash of lightning. 
 
 " You ! " he exclaimed, in the same tone that Caesar 
 may be supposed to have said "Et tu Brute" in, as the 
 woman he had ruined advanced, with outstretched 
 arms, towards him. 
 
 His passion was terrible to behold. His cane seemed 
 to part, something bright flashed in the light, and, like 
 a wounded tiger, he sprang towards her. 
 
 The next instant he stood as in a trance, while the 
 blood spurted from her bosom ; she staggered and fell 
 at his feet, a heavenly look on the wasted face, that 
 made it appear divine in its expression. 
 
 "John! oh, John!" she gasped. "You have killed 
 me ! you have killed me ! and I love you still ! Mary, 
 Mary, God help him ! I was wrong ! oh, I was wrong ! 
 Oh, John, I forgive you, I forgive you ! " 
 
 And so she died. Never another word left her lips; 
 her last words were of him, a prayer for the pardon 
 of the man who had so cruelly wronged her. 
 
 And there he stood, motionless, powerless, bereft of 
 all his sejQses. 
 
 A shriek burst from Mary Farly's lips at sight of
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 159 
 
 this awful, unexpected denouement ; the sound of hur- 
 ried footsteps were on the stairs ; then two policemen 
 entered the room where the tragedy had just taken 
 place, and took him off, unresisting, speechless. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 TO THE WORLD. 
 
 news of the tragedy "at Derville's," and the 
 -L arrest of Mr. Charles Wilton, occasioned the greatest 
 excitement and astonishment. The wildest rumors for 
 a time prevailed. The elegant Mr. Wilton, the pet of 
 society, the man who had been courted and admired 
 by the " Upper Ten," a common murderer ? Yes, it 
 was true. Society had received and admired and fos- 
 tered a common criminal ! How could society take 
 revenge on this man who had made a dupe of it but 
 by turning its back upon him ? Society did so ; and 
 Mr. Wilton had many enemies who had feared him in 
 his days of power, who, now that he was down, de- 
 termined to keep him down. 
 
 Mary Farly visited him often, and prayed, begged, 
 beseeched him to write a confession of the part he had 
 acted in the murder of Leslie Wyndham ; but he per- 
 sistently denied and refused. Hope was not dead in 
 his breast yet. But whatever hopes he may have en- 
 tertained of escape, they were soon blasted. He went 
 back to his cell one day condemned to death. 
 
 She visited him a few days before the time appointed
 
 160 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 for the carrying out of the dread sentence of the 
 law. 
 
 u There is no hope for you," she said, " and I am 
 sorry for you. Your life is drawing to a close, and 
 whatever you may do cannot make your name (believe 
 me, I do not mean to wound your feelings) more igno- 
 minious than it now is. I ask you, I beg of you, as 
 a last act of justice, as one good act of your life, to 
 grant my wishes. It cannot injure you; it will make 
 me feel more at rest." 
 
 " See here," he answered, after a few moments, pause, 
 " I have no cause to thank you, for but for you I would 
 not be here to-day ; and yet I admire you for your 
 pluck and courage. I cannot help it, and I will do 
 what you desire, on one condition." 
 
 " Name the condition," she replied, " and if I can, 
 I will perform it." 
 
 He whispered it to her. She recoiled as if a ser- 
 pent had struck her. 
 
 " Well, as you wish," he said, nonchalantly. 
 
 She thought. She knew that what he asked of her 
 was wrong ; but was she wrong in agreeing to his con- 
 ditions, in view of the end to be attained thereby ? 
 
 She did agree, and promised not to make it public 
 until one year after his death ; and the confession was 
 duly made and witnessed. 
 
 On the day named for the execution, the jailer, upon 
 entering his cell, found him cold and still dead ! 
 
 " Committed suicide ! " 
 
 No one could tell how or who had furnished him 
 with the means. There remained but the bare fact 
 that he had committed the last terrible act in a long 
 career of crime.
 
 THE WOBLD TO BLAME. 161 
 
 There he lie dead ! by his side, one hand almost 
 resting on it, a pile of manuscript, evidently just com- 
 pleted, for the ink with which his name had been signed 
 was not quite dry, the first words of which, written in 
 large letters, attracted the jailer's attention. 
 
 He took it up with a shudder, gave an alarm, and 
 then proceeding to his private office began to read the 
 suicide's last words. The manuscript ran thus : 
 
 TO THE WORLD ! 
 
 HOW I BECAME A CRIMINAL. 
 
 Perhaps, what I am about to write may be the 
 means of saving many who are now standing on the 
 threshold of crime, the doors of which, always open, 
 are only waiting to close on them, from coming to the 
 miserable end which stares me in the face; perhaps, 
 even my life, my death, may teach the world a lesson 
 of incalculable benefit, may prove to have been far 
 better for it than the life of its best and purest 
 man. 
 
 My mother, in her youth, must have been exceedingly 
 beautiful, for even at the age of forty, despite all the 
 trouble she had then passed through, I remember that 
 she was a handsome woman. But she had not beauty 
 alone to recommend her. She was well educated, 
 talented, and the only child of wealthy parents, whose 
 pride was even greater than their riches. 
 
 Of course, she had many lovers. She could have 
 taken her choice from the richest and highest, in point 
 of social standing, young men in the city. 
 14* L
 
 162 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 Among these admirers of hers were two, whom I 
 will call Albert Crompton and Philip Martindale. 
 Were I to name the former, the memory of an old 
 man who occupied a prominent position in what is, it 
 has often seemed to me satirically, called Society, would 
 suddenly cease to be cherished. He was, at the time 
 of which I write, rich, in fact, it had been his good 
 fortune to be born in the lap of luxury, but far 
 from attractive. Martindale, on the other hand, pos- 
 sessed a fascinating exterior, was very talented, and 
 very poor ! Such is chance, and so does fortune divide 
 her favors. Is the division equal ? Not by any means. 
 To be poor, in those days was, and in these is, to be 
 guilty of a monstrous crime. 
 
 With the parents, Crompton, it may easily be divined, 
 was the favorite. To have him for a son-in-law was 
 the pinnacle of their ambition. Indeed, between him 
 and Martindale they showed no favoritism. Favor- 
 itism ? Why, the very idea was ridiculous ! What 
 was Martindale anyway? Who was he? Only a 
 poor secretary! Surely, he could never dream of 
 aspiring to the hand of the rich man's daughter? 
 The rich man never thought of such a thing. But 
 Martindale did ! He forgot that love was not made 
 for poor people. What right has a poor man to love ? 
 If you saw a man put a stone around his neck to drag 
 him down, when he wished to go up, what would you 
 call him? A fool? The word is not half forcible 
 enough. 
 
 Well, it was the old story. The rich man's daughter 
 loved the rich man's poor secretary, made what is 
 termed a mesalliance, and was disowned by her parents.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 163 
 
 The poor man had love, and expected to do wonders 
 with it. He made a mesalliance too ; in fact, he was 
 guilty of a crime : for, if any apology can be made for 
 poor people marrying at all, surely none can be found 
 for a poor man who takes a girl accustomed to luxury 
 to a home of poverty. Such a man is guilty of a 
 crime. 
 
 Martindale soon found out his mistake. It is not 
 to be expected that a girl accustomed to having her 
 every wish gratified can endure poverty, and not 
 grumble. There may be an exceptional case, but in 
 the great majority the woman is sure to regret the step 
 she has made. This is only human nature, nothing 
 more, and this was the case with the secretary's 
 wife. Not that there was any positive outbreak, 
 any great quarrels. No ; but there were, frequently, 
 murmurings of discontent, and petulant words, and 
 sad looks, which spoke only too plainly, and cut poor 
 Martindale to the heart. 
 
 He saw that he had cause to regret the rashness of 
 his love. He saw that he had done wrong. 
 
 " Her I love best I have injured most," he said to 
 himself. " I, a poor man, had no right to marry; and 
 if I must have married, I should not have chosen out- 
 side of my own circle." 
 
 Thus, at times, my mother heard him soliloquize. 
 But still, however, they were for a while, on the whole, 
 comparatively happy. So long as he had only him- 
 self and wife to support, Martindale managed to get 
 along and that was all. But, alas ! he added a third 
 crime to his list. His first crime was poverty ; his 
 second, marrying ; his third and greatest, bringing
 
 164 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 children into the world. For what right has a man 
 who finds it out of his power to keep himself and wife 
 comfortably to bring innocent beings to life to share 
 in his misery? What justification can he offer for 
 thus entailing misery and suffering on others who are 
 powerless to prevent it? Is it not a crime? 
 
 I asked a question above, viz., What would you 
 think of a man who puts a stone around his neck to 
 drag him down, when he wished to go up? Suppose, 
 now, that man kept on putting stones around his neck, 
 what would you think of him then ? Can you find a 
 word expressive enough ? Yet this was just what 
 Martindale did. This was his third crime ; for, surely, 
 if, as I hold, a man has no right to marry unless he 
 knows that he can keep his wife comfortably, much 
 less has he a right to have children. This is my theory ; 
 the practice is very different ; for it seems to me that 
 the poorer the people the larger the family. A poor 
 man has no end of children ; a rich man usually has 
 but few. 
 
 Martindale had six four girls and two boys, one of 
 whom was myself. Two of the girls died in babyhood ; 
 died from want of proper care from want of proper 
 nourishment. What could my parents do? They 
 worked hard enough, God knows! But with eight 
 mouths to feed on the starvation wages of two people, 
 how could it be done properly ? My mother was proud, 
 and so was my father, so proud that they would rather 
 have died than have asked for charity. 
 
 Things grew worse and worse. With the despera- 
 tion of despair my parents struggled along. They 
 gave their children love ; they did all they could for
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 165 
 
 their offspring. No one knew how we managed to 
 live at home. My father, proud as the richest and 
 greatest, kept up a semblance of what is called " ap- 
 pearances " such it was for people living in a crowded, 
 dirty tenement. We were starving gradually, but no 
 one knew it. 
 
 Our co-tenants, poor and miserable themselves, 
 managed to eke out an existence, and imagined we 
 were doing the same. They never knew how hard 
 things were with us how we lived. Lived? It 
 was no life. We did not live. We only kept on dying. 
 
 My father, understanding the worth of a good edu- 
 cation, determined that his children should never have 
 cause to blame him for not giving them one. And so, 
 despite his poverty, he kept us at school, working the 
 harder to sustain existence. At first he tried author- 
 ship. This did not succeed. He could not publish 
 his own works, and publishers returned them " respect- 
 fully declined." And yet his works were far superior 
 to the majority of those issued. But he was unknown 
 in the world of letters, and he could not get an open- 
 ing and receive compensation for his labor. 
 
 "There is no encouragement of home talent in 
 America," he used to say. " Foreign authors sell here; 
 American talent is dying for want of nourishment. 
 We have just as great writers here as in any part of the 
 world, unknown men, who, if they could but be 
 heard, would make a lasting name. It is easy enough 
 saying that a publisher will take anything if it is good, 
 but let an unknown man, without money and friends, 
 try to secure a publisher in his own country, and see 
 what will be the result."
 
 166 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 I have said that my father's works were good. How 
 do I know ? Because a play which he wrote was stolen 
 by the Manager to whom he sent it, and produced with 
 great success. What could my father do ? Nothing ! 
 His work was not copyrighted ; he had no proof no 
 witness but himself; he had no money to spend in 
 law, he was helpless. 
 
 I was sixteen when I graduated. My brother, who 
 was not at all inclined to study, had left previously, 
 and was working on a small salary. My sisters were 
 yet at school. 
 
 I procured a situation down town at the enormous 
 salary of four dollars a week, and so, for a while, be- 
 tween us four my brother, father, mother, and my- 
 self, we managed to live a little better than we had 
 been accustomed to. 
 
 One day, my mother met her old lover, Albert 
 Crompton, in the street. She was still handsome, 
 despite the trouble she had known, and the sight of 
 her lit up the old flame in his breast. He had not for- 
 gotten or forgiven her; he still remembered her with 
 a mad passion, a passion altogether, or nearly so, 
 sensual. When she married my father, it had been 
 a great blow to him. From that moment he had 
 nourished a hatred against my father a fierce, bitter, 
 vindictive hatred. 
 
 The sight of my mother, whom he had not seen in 
 some years, revived his mad passion, and all the old 
 bitter memories which had never been quite dead. 
 
 He immediately instituted inquiries and learnt all 
 about us ; found out how poor we were, and then, as I 
 afterwards learnt from her own lips, made her an in-
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 167 
 
 famous proposal. She immediately rejected it, with 
 words of scathing scorn, and he left her, breathing 
 vengeance. 
 
 That night, when my father came home, I noticed 
 that he was unusually downcast. The truth came out. 
 He had been discharged by his employer. When he 
 asked for a reason, the only answer he received was, 
 that " business was dull, and expenses must be cur- 
 tailed." 
 
 The following day my brother came home dis- 
 charged. My father and he endeavored to procure 
 other situations, vainly. Manual labor was not in 
 their sphere ; they were not strong enough, and no 
 other could be got. 
 
 The whole support of the family fell on my mother 
 and myself. We worked like slaves, and I saw with 
 pain that her strength and health were breaking down 
 from over- work, over-taxation. 
 
 I was, naturally, exceedingly ambitious. I dreamt 
 of fame and greatness, and my leisure hours I had 
 spent in the composition of a work which was to gain 
 them for me. My hopes in this respect were blasted. 
 My attempt at authorship met with the same fate as 
 my father's had, previously. Oh ! the cruelty of that 
 " respectfully declined ! " If they had read my work, 
 I would not have heeded it so much ; but I knew that 
 it had not even been looked at, for I received it back, 
 unopened, on the same day on which I had left it. I 
 had gone to the publisher's full of hope, dreaming 
 of the happiness which I was about to give my father 
 and mother thinking that I would be able, alone, to 
 support the family. Alas ! my hopes were blasted. I
 
 168 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 felt that day that darkness had closed in all around 
 me ; I looked into the future and saw nothing bright, 
 nothing to encourage me. I blamed my father for 
 ever bringing me into the world I blamed him, in 
 my selfishness, for being poor. My brain whirled as 
 I thought of what I could do, if I only had money ! 
 I looked at my mother working like a slave ; I looked 
 at my father, a stony expression of despair in his eyes; 
 I looked at my brother (who had, at last, secured a 
 situation as copyist on a salary of six dollars a week), 
 moody and silent, and full of a bitterness which he 
 could not conceal, and my sensitive nature received a 
 shock to think that I could not do anything to help 
 them. Oh ! I felt the cruel stings of poverty then if 
 ever a human being did ! Had I been alone, I knew 
 that in time I would rise ; but with others to look after, 
 I had no chance. 
 
 That day another misfortune befell us. The factory 
 at which my mother worked failed, and all hands were 
 thrown out of employment. 
 
 I looked at my father when he heard the news, and 
 I saw a fierce resolve in his eyes that appelled me. I 
 could not make out the expression ; I could only see 
 that he had formed some desperate resolve that he 
 was frenzied. Had he not trouble enough to frenzy 
 him ? He was a husband who loved his wife ; he 
 saw himself unable to support her, when he would 
 have died to have made her happy. He was a father 
 who loved his children ; he saw them deprived of 
 the necessaries of life. John, my brother, made six 
 dollars a week j. he managed, by doing odd work which 
 galled his pride, and day by day shortened his life by
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 169 
 
 years, to make eight, and I made four eighteen dol- 
 lars a week, now that my mother's work had failed, 
 was all there was to support a family of six ! 
 
 He sat up late that night. He did nothing but 
 write, write, write. He was out of the house early on 
 the following morning. When I came home, I saw 
 him sitting there like a statue. He seemed to be in a 
 state of great nervousness. The least sound startled 
 him at the opening of a door, the fall of a footstep, 
 he started. 
 
 My mother called me aside, I was her confidant 
 always, and showed me a hundred dollar bill. 
 
 " Your father brought this home to-day," she said, 
 " and gave it to me saying, that he had borrowed it 
 from an old friend, who was going to give him profit- 
 able employment, and telling me to give the children 
 a treat for once in their lives." And then she added, 
 in a whisper, " I fear he has done something wrong ! " 
 
 And so he had. That night he was arrested. In 
 his desperation he had forged a check on his old em- 
 ployer. My mother gave the money up. She could 
 not blame him. She realized his position ; she saw that 
 he had done it for our benefit. * * * He was found 
 dead in his cell in the morning. He had died during 
 the night died of the shame and disgrace. He had 
 committed the crime to benefit us ; the effect was the 
 contrary. This was the result : the shock threw my 
 mother on a sick bed, John and I were discharged at 
 the end of the week, we were the sons of a criminal, 
 and his sin was visited upon us, his eight dollars, 
 which had gone far to our support, was now lost, and 
 
 starvation stared us in the face. 
 15
 
 170 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 When I entered the room on that Saturday night, 
 four days after my father's death, I saw Crorapton 
 there. Oh ! what a terrible temptation he was holding 
 out to my mother ! If she yielded, her children would 
 be removed from the danger of starvation. I think 
 she was on the point of yielding when I entered the 
 room, but the sight of me checked her. She ordered 
 him out of the house. He saw, then, that as long as I 
 was with her he had nothing to hope. 
 
 On Monday morning, sick as she was, my mother 
 went out in search of work, and John and I followed 
 her example. Well, there is no use in detailing how 
 we managed for the next six months. As soon as 
 people found out who we were, and somehow or 
 another they learnt it in a few days, perhaps, Cromp- 
 ton had something to do with it, we were discharged. 
 No one would trust the wife and children of a criminal. 
 
 We were born proud ; we endured everything, rather 
 than ask for charity. No one inquired about us ; no 
 one paid any attention to our welfare. 
 
 The climax came at last. One night John failed to 
 come home, and that same night my mother was pros- 
 trated. She had been fasting for two days ; my little 
 sisters had been fasting for two days ; I had been fast- 
 ing for two days. And we had not a cent. 
 
 I heard my sisters crying for something to eat; I 
 saw my mother lying sick and helpless, moaning for 
 bread for her little ones, and I powerless to give them 
 what they asked. My brain whirled, and my heart 
 sank with despair. Oh ! the agony I endured. 
 
 I could stand it no longer. Bread ! bread ! I must 
 have bread !
 
 THE WOKLD TO BLAME. 171 
 
 I dashed out into the street, mad with despair ! I 
 ran against a man. I saw that he held a watch in his 
 hand. Before he was aware of my purpose, I had it in 
 my possession ; before he could recover from his as- 
 tonishment, I had disappeared from his sight. He had 
 caught a glance of my face ; that was all. I did not 
 give myself time to think. I rushed into a pawn-shop. 
 The pawnbroker knew me ; I had been in his place 
 often before to pledge what little jewelry my mother 
 had kept. He advanced me a pittance, the two- 
 hundreth part of the value of the watch. Never 
 mind ; it was enough. It would buy bread ; it would 
 buy a little something something delicate for my 
 sick mother. 
 
 I brought them home something to eat. I saw them 
 devour it with avidity. Not even my mother thought 
 to ask me any questions. I saw her eyes light up at 
 the sight of the little girls eating. I saw her satisfy- 
 ing the hunger that was gnawing at her vitals. I could 
 not eat. She clasped me in her arms ; she pressed me 
 to her breast ; she called me her darling, and my heart 
 was too choked for utterance. 
 
 Suddenly there came a knock on the door. I started 
 with fear. The sense of what I had done rushed over 
 me with the rapidity of lightning. 
 
 The door opened. My worst fears were realized. 
 The pawnbroker and a policeman entered. To be 
 short, I found I had made a great mistake in going to 
 that pawn-shop where I was so well known, for it so 
 chanced that the man I had robbed was the pawn- 
 broker's nephew, a young man from another State, 
 on a visit.
 
 172 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 As they entered, ray mother raised herself in the 
 bed, and pale as she was, I saw her cheek blanch. 
 
 My little sisters, trembling with a vague foreboding 
 of disaster, caught each other's hands and edged close 
 to her side. 
 
 I arose. I knew that the end had come. 
 
 " That is him the villain ! the young thief! " said 
 the pawnbroker. 
 
 The officer advanced ; he grasped me by the shoulder. 
 
 " I must arrest you, my man," he said ; " you are 
 charged with highway robbery ! " 
 
 " That 's it ! that 's it ! the villain ! " said the pawn- 
 broker. 
 
 " Highway robbery ! Oh, God ! " 
 
 It was my mother who gasped the words, and as the 
 last one, uttered in a tone that cut me to the heart, 
 escaped her lips, she fell back. 
 
 I dared not look at her. 
 
 " Ma ! ma ! oh, ma ! " cried my sisters in an agonized 
 voice, " oh, ma ! don't die ! " 
 
 "Die/" 
 
 The steel entered my soul. I felt, for a moment, 
 like one struck suddenly with paralysis. 
 
 " Leave me ! " I said hoarsely to the officer ; " leave 
 me, and take him out of the room. In a minute I 
 will be ready, I will go with you. Leave me alone 
 for a minute with her, with my mother. Leave me, 
 will you ? " 
 
 " No ! no ! " cried the pawnbroker. " He will run 
 away." 
 
 The policeman, touched despite of himself, answered 
 the cruel words with a look ; then pointed to the door, 
 and followed the pawnbroker out.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 173 
 
 And then I was left alone ; alone with my two weep- 
 ing sisters, and what I had no doubt was the corpse 
 of my mother. 
 
 I caught a sight of myself in the glass. My face 
 was haggard, my lips white, my eyes stony. 
 
 For a moment I stood perfectly motionless. No 
 words can describe the tumult of my feelings. I felt 
 that I had been wronged ; that the world had used me 
 harshly. The fires of hell burned within my breast. 
 In that one moment I went to the bad ! 
 
 The little ones had ceased their cries and fallen sud- 
 denly into a deep sleep, and an oppressive silence 
 reigned in the room. 
 
 I advanced to the bedside and gazed intently on the 
 still, white face, so calm in its repose. A multitude of 
 thoughts, too confused and indistinct for expression, 
 surged through my mind. My heart was bursting 
 with emotion, and my whole being thrilled with a 
 nameless sensation. 
 
 She was dead, and she had been my mother. My 
 mother and I had never been able to provide her 
 with the least luxury ; I had never been able to give 
 her one moment's peaceful rest. Others had been 
 rolling in wealth, while we were starving. 
 
 I thought, then, of my father's last rash act. He 
 had committed the crime out of love for us ; he had 
 meant to aid us, and he had worked our ruin. He 
 made us the wife and children of a criminal, a 
 criminal who had been painted as guilty of the black- 
 est ingratitude, for no one ever knew the truth, and 
 no one would trust us ! Even when the employer 
 
 would have retained us, there was a cry raised by the 
 15*
 
 174 THE WOULD TO BLAME. 
 
 employees against him. T/iey could not afford to be 
 contaminated by our presence. 
 
 Why, you may ask, had we not emigrated to some 
 strange place where our history was unknown ? Why ? 
 One word will answer the question : money ! 
 
 Well, the end had come at last. Her troubles were 
 all over. There was some happiness in that thought. 
 
 I bent over and kissed her cold, mute lips for the 
 last, last time. My grief was driving me wild, and I 
 had not a tear to relieve me. 
 
 " Mother ! mother ! " I cried, " I have been am- 
 bitious ; I have tried to be great and good, but they 
 would not let me. Now they shall feel my sting ; now 
 I shall be great and bad ! " 
 
 I turned away. I had done forever with the old 
 life. I said not a word to the little ones ; I did not 
 even murmur, " God help you ! " I had ceased to 
 believe in the power of God to help or save. 
 
 When the officer entered the room, he found me 
 standing like a statue carved out of stone, but ready to 
 go with him. 
 
 The next morning I learnt another lesson on the 
 difference between being rich and poor. A rich 
 murderer was driven in a carriage to the Court-House. 
 How was it with me ? Was I driven to the court- 
 room ? No ! I, with others, was made to walk in the 
 public street with manacles on my wrists, and followed 
 by a gaping, curious crowd. 
 
 My eyes fell. Remember that this was my first ex- 
 perience in the ways of the transgressor. Remember 
 that I was not a hardened criminal, dead to all shame. 
 I felt "the humiliation keenly. I said to myself, there
 
 THE WOBLD TO BLAME. 175 
 
 is no use of my trying to be good now ; everybody will 
 know me. 
 
 That experience hardened me. Think of it ! And 
 remember, too, that some of my fellow-prisoners were 
 innocent men ! I could swear that after that day they 
 became criminals. 
 
 Can you imagine any quicker, any surer way of 
 deadening a man's feelings, of making him lost to all 
 shame, of killing every finer sensibility of his nature, 
 than by walking him manacled through the public 
 street, with a gaping, grinning crowd at his heels ? 
 
 My spirit revolted ; I felt that it would be the acme 
 of bliss to crush the entire world out of existence. I 
 was ready for anything desperate! You will not 
 wonder, then, that when I saw Crompton's face among 
 the spectators behind me, and saw his eyes light up 
 with demoniac triumph as they fell upon my counte- 
 nance, I rushed quickly upon him, before my guardian, 
 unaware of my purpose, could prevent me. 
 
 I was committed for trial. I was tried on two 
 charges, one for highway robbery, and the other for 
 assault and battery. I made no defence; it would 
 have been useless to have made the attempt, when I 
 had no witnesses to prove any facts I might have 
 stated. 
 
 The judge kindly told me that I was a desperate 
 villain, and that he owed it to the community to put 
 me out of the way of doing harm for ten years. Oh, 
 kind judge! most merciful judge ! it's so easy saying 
 "ten years." What do you know of prison life? 
 Why, when a convict who killed a warden offered in 
 his defence his treatment in prison, you refused to
 
 176 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 listen to a word. And then you thought him an 
 utterly irredeemable villain, because, when you refused 
 to hear his story, he sat down, invited you to sentence 
 him to death, and laughed at the ceremony of the jury 
 bringing in a verdict ! You thought him heartless, 
 because he said, " I don't consider that I have been 
 tried yet, but I am perfectly satisfied with the result. 
 To be hanged would be an act of supreme mercy, com- 
 pared to being compelled to live in the State prison." * 
 
 Well, I went to the State prison, and assumed the 
 convict's garb. Here I learnt another lesson on the 
 power of money. If I had been rich, some light work 
 would have been assigned to me. As it was, I was put 
 at a kind of work for which I was utterly unsuited, 
 both bodily and mentally speaking. My health at 
 last failed me, and for weeks I hovered between life 
 and death. I can't say that I received the best treat- 
 ment. It mattered not whether the convict lived or 
 died. In fact, if he died, it was so much the better. 
 
 When I recovered, I was placed in the shoe factory. 
 Did I learn to make shoes ? Was I taught any trade 
 by means of which I could make an honest living 
 when released from imprisonment? Not a bit of it! 
 I was taught a special branch of the business, but I 
 never learnt how to make shoes. I could no more 
 have set up for a cobbler, than I could have soared. 
 
 I have to find great fault with the practice of teach- 
 ing prisoners a special part of a work ; for instance, 
 what I was taught cutting leather. It is not easy 
 to secure a position requiring only this specialty. If 
 a prisoner is expected to live honestly, upon his dis- 
 
 * The very words used.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 177 
 
 charge, he should be taught a means of livelihood. If 
 he is, to take my own case, put in the shoe department, 
 he should learn the whole business, how to make an 
 entire shoe, not how to make a part. In short, he 
 should be fitted for a regular cobbler. 
 
 The practice in the prison where I was confined was 
 otherwise. 
 
 Prisons, you say, were made for purposes of refor- 
 mation. They may have been made for such purposes, 
 but they are not used for them. Take my own case 
 again. I was a new convict ; it was my first offence. 
 Yet, instead of being confined in a separate place, I 
 was huddled in with men hardened in crime ; men who 
 made light of every sin ; who took the prison as one 
 of the natural events of their lives; who intended, 
 when they were released, to resume their law-breaking, 
 but to be more careful in their operations, and not to 
 be caught again, if they could help it. 
 . What could be the effect on me of this indiscriminate 
 association ? Could it do me any good ? Was it likely 
 to have a beneficial effect on my mind ? Or was it not 
 more likely to harden and deprave me to kill what- 
 ever of the good remained in me? The poet wrote 
 truly : 
 
 Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
 As to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 
 But seen too oft familiar with her face, 
 We first endure then pity then embrace. 
 
 Oh ! I tell you, your prison system needs a thorough 
 overhauling. An entire change in the method of treat- 
 ing criminals is needed, if you ever expect to work 
 their reform. Your present system is radically bad. 
 
 M
 
 178 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 Let me point out some defects in the State prison 
 where I was confined. It was very improperly guarded. 
 The keepers were men utterly unfit for the position. 
 They were brutal, and they could do whatever they 
 wished. They had full power to obey the promptings 
 of their malice. If they took a dislike to a man, woe 
 be to him. On the other hand, the rules of the prison 
 were such that if a convict felt dissatisfied with any- 
 thing, he could stop his work on the instant, and 
 march to the warden with his complaint, regardless of 
 the keeper's presence, instead of being compelled to 
 wait until a regular hour set apart for the hearing of 
 complaints by the warden. This was not calculated to 
 inspire the convict with a sense of obedience to his 
 keeper, and the latter had to rule through fear. Again, 
 if the keeper denied a charge, the convict's complaint 
 was, in nine out of ten cases, disregarded entirely. I 
 admit that in many instances their complaints had no 
 foundation in fact, and were groundless. But there 
 were cases which came under my observation, in one 
 of which /was the complainant, which demanded, 
 and should have received, thorough investigation, but 
 which were unheeded. 
 
 Again, by reason of the manner in which the prison 
 was guarded, every inducement was placed in the con- 
 vict's way to escape. There were too few keepers over 
 too many men, and every temptation to endeavor to 
 regain his liberty was placed prominently before the 
 prisoner, so that he could not refrain from forming the 
 idea. When one did make the attempt and failed, 
 then he was punished, punished for obeying the im- 
 pulse of his nature for being a human creature pos- 
 sessed of a human nature.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 179 
 
 Well, my time came at last, and I was set at liberty. 
 Liberty ! I had not known it for years, and my heart 
 beat wildly with the consciousness of freedom as I 
 stepped out of my convict's garb. 
 
 Evidently, however, I was expected to return before 
 long, for the last words cheering words ! spoken 
 to me were : 
 
 " Good-bye. We 'II see you soon again." 
 
 You see experience had taught the officials that they 
 who stopped at the prison once, would be sure to re- 
 turn. A very good idea of the reformatory nature of 
 the institution they had ! 
 
 But, leaving aside the effect of the life I led within 
 those walls, was it not natural that they should expect 
 me to return ? Let me show you why it was so : 
 
 First. I knew no trade. I had not been fitted for 
 any business. I was not a cobbler, a carpenter, a 
 plumber, in fact, I knew as little when I came out 
 as when I went in; I was just as ignorant of business; 
 I had as little experience to help me ; I had nothing to 
 depend on. 
 
 Second. I had no place to which to go ; no situation 
 of any kind awaiting me. 
 
 Third. My prison life had not been such as to inspire 
 me with the idea that I had been punished to teach me 
 that the way of the transgressor is hard, and that good 
 is preferable to evil. On the contrary, I had an in- 
 distinct idea that I had been persecuted, and that I 
 would be justified in revenging my wrongs on my 
 persecutor, viz., Society. 
 
 Fourth. I had but money enough to carry me to my 
 destination ; I would arrive there penniless ; I could
 
 180 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 not secure any kind of work immediately ; no provision 
 was made for me until I could, if I desired, by search- 
 ing, find a place ; I would find myself homeless and 
 starving ; my mind was used to the idea of crime, and 
 it followed, therefore, that I would not be so apt to 
 hesitate and think over what I was doing, before com- 
 mitting an offence against the law. 
 
 To proceed. I jumped aboard a city bound train. 
 A passenger seated by my side I wonder if he had 
 known who I was, would he have changed his seat? 
 was reading a newspaper. I glanced over it. A 
 name, Martindale, caught my eye, and riveted my 
 attention instantly. I asked the stranger in a trem- 
 bling voice if he would be kind enough to loan me his 
 paper for a second. He did so ; he did not know that 
 I was a discharged convict. I seized the paper greedily. 
 Imagine with what emotions I read this : 
 
 " A man was found dead in Street yesterday. 
 
 Death had evidently resulted from starvation. De- 
 ceased was worn almost to a skeleton. The body is 
 believed to be that of John Martindale, *a bummer 
 around low groggeries. It now lies in the Morgue. 
 An inquest will be held, and the body interred in 
 Potter's Field." 
 
 The paper dropped from my hands. John, my 
 brother ! I had no doubt it was him. So, that was 
 the end to which he had come ! Died alone, homeless, 
 friendless, starving ! died a death of shame and 
 misery ! A bitter oath escaped my lips, as I thought 
 of it. 
 
 And my sisters ? what had become of them ? Were 
 they alive or dead ? If alive, what were they ?
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 181 
 
 My brain was kept busy with the most horrible con- 
 jectures. 
 
 The train arrived at the depot, and I stepped off. 
 I was in the city again, for the first time in many long 
 years. Where should I go ? To the Morgue ! I 
 would go look at the corpse! I would make sure 
 whether it was John's or not. I remembered that in 
 boyhood he had printed the initials of his name on his 
 right arm, indelibly, with India ink. 
 
 As I walked through the streets, I could perceive 
 many changes and improvements which had been made 
 since last I had wandered along them. Everything 
 seemed strange to me. For the time being my atten- 
 tion was called away from myself. 
 
 At length, I reached the Morgue. I stopped a mo- 
 ment before entering, and a sense of my own hopeless 
 condition came over me ; a thought that I, some day, 
 might be brought here, flashed across my brain.. 
 
 A little solemn-looking building of stone, with an 
 architecture of tomb-like severity outside, and grave 
 simplicity within, was the Morgue, that receptacle 
 for the unknown dead yielded up by the river and 
 found in the street. They lie on slabs of marble, 
 each on its narrow shelf laid out, a tube curling over 
 from which a continuous spray of fresh water was 
 showered on the corpse. On a hook fixed directly 
 above the head of the deceased, the articles of clothing 
 which were on the body, when it came into the charge 
 of the authorities, were hung. 
 
 There was nothing pleasant in the sight ; no redeem- 
 ing feature. The picture presented was painted in jet 
 16
 
 182 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 black ; there was not a single touch of white to relieve 
 its sombreness. 
 
 The corpse of a woman, a woman who had evi- 
 dently been beautiful in life, who had, doubtless, 
 
 Rashly importunate, 
 Gone to her death ! 
 
 for they took her from out of the river, occupied the 
 first slab. It was easy to stand still for a moment and 
 tell what her life had been. It required no vivid 
 imagination to solve the mystery of her death ; to read 
 the misery of her life. 
 
 There was to me a sort of fascination in the sight 
 of these friendless dead in the endeavor to surmise 
 the history of each of these unfortunates. At every 
 slab I stood for more than a minute, and gazed intently 
 on the corpse. 
 
 Number two was an old man. He had been found 
 dead in the street, with a ghastly gash across his throat. 
 I looked upon the poor body, but my thoughts were 
 not of him, but of his murderer. Who was he? 
 What had driven him into crime ? Where was he ? 
 Was he wandering restlessly over the earth, a prey to 
 fear and remorse, or was he just as happy, just as much 
 at his ease, just as free in his mind, as though his hands 
 had never been steeped in the blood of a fellow-crea- 
 ture? 
 
 Sentiment replied affirmatively to the first question ; 
 experience answered " yes " to the last. 
 
 Number three was a man. There was a small hole 
 in his forehead, through which the fatal bullet had 
 entered his brain. This was a case of suicide ; cause,
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 183 
 
 poverty ! "What misery he must have known, what 
 privation and suffering he must have endured, before 
 he committed the rash act which sent his body to the 
 Morgue, thence to be conveyed to the grave of the 
 friendless and destitute Potter's Field ! It was all 
 over now; he was at rest. Perhaps this was the 
 happiest hour he had ever known. Who could say ? 
 
 The next was another case of suicide. A young 
 man, whose features told plainly that he had belonged 
 to the upper grade of society. Drink and debauchery 
 had brought him here. Was any one mourning for him ? 
 
 The last was the man I had come to see, my 
 brother. This corpse was all that remained of him. 
 
 " Oh, John ! John ! " 
 
 An official passing by stopped and looked at me. 
 Perhaps, used as he was to such scenes, the agony in 
 my voice touched him. 
 
 " Do you know him ? " he asked. 
 
 I could not speak ; I could not answer. 
 
 " Perhaps this may aid your memory," he said ; " it 
 was the only thing found in his pockets." 
 
 He handed me a small tin-type. It was the picture, 
 faded somewhat, of a woman. It sent a thrill through 
 me, for it was the picture of 
 
 My mother ! 
 
 Poor John ! He had left us, doubtless, with some 
 faint idea of coming back within a short time with the 
 fruits of his secret labor to relieve our wants. And 
 we had never seen him again ! Why he had not re- 
 turned, I would never know. 
 
 But he had never parted with this picture ; he had 
 cherished it always ; he had died with it near him.
 
 184 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 I could only say to the official that I would come 
 again on the morrow to claim the corpse ; to be careful 
 of the picture, as I desired to bury it with the dead 
 man. And then I left. 
 
 I was glad to get outside of the dead-house again. 
 I walked along, pondering deeply, my eyes bent on the 
 ground. Suddenly, some one accosted me. 
 
 "Hello!" 
 
 I looked up with a start. Before me stood a young, 
 fine-looking man, arrayed in the height of fashion. I 
 recognized him. He was a fellow-convict. We had 
 taken a liking to each other while in the prison. He 
 had been released a month previous to the expiration 
 of my time. 
 
 "How are you?" I exclaimed. "How are you 
 getting along ? " 
 
 " I 'm well, and doing well," he replied. " How 
 long have you been out ? " 
 
 " Since this morning." 
 
 " And what are you going to do ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I must look for some situation." 
 
 " Situation ? Fudge ! " He was younger in years, 
 older in crime, than I was. " Lord bless you ! " he 
 continued, with a laugh, " how foolish you are ! Sup- 
 pose you are asked for references, you will be, sure, 
 what will you do? refer to your last employer, the 
 State ? Pshaw ! You will never get along. I have 
 tried it, I tell you ! I know what it is. Just come 
 along with me, if you want to find out what it is to 
 live. We '11 get along first-rate together." 
 
 He used very potent arguments : they seemed to me 
 conclusive; he said a great deal to me with a serious-
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 185 
 
 ness of which I had not thought him capable. I need 
 not repeat all he said. It ended in my going with him. 
 
 Two days afterward I was walking along Centre 
 Street, when my attention was attracted to a crowd of 
 urchins, following a policeman in charge of a woman. 
 It was the most disgusting sight I have ever seen. 
 Her dress was in rags, open at the bosom, falling off 
 her back, and covered with dirt and vermin. She 
 staggered along the street screeching snatches of a wild 
 obscene song, her coarse, unkempt hair strewn down 
 her forehead, her features distorted beyond recognition, 
 her face bloated, and her expression fearfully repulsive. 
 Even the policeman shrank away from her with an 
 indescribable fear. Never, never have I seen a human 
 being so inexpressibly loathsome. 
 
 The sight sickened me. I turned away. Shall I 
 tell you who that wretched creature was ? I found it 
 out afterwards. 
 
 She was my sister one of the little girls whom I 
 had left sleeping the sleep of innocent childhood on the 
 night of my arrest ! * * * * 
 
 Let me make a retrospection. 
 
 My mother had not been, as I had imagined, dead. 
 It proved to be only a faint. 
 
 On the day when I was sentenced, Crompton called 
 on her. She was without a protector, and too ill to 
 work, even had she had something to do. He repeated 
 his offer. He pointed to her two little girls, how 
 were they to live? Thus he took advantage of a 
 mother's love. 
 
 Sick, wearied, despairing, and desperate, she suc- 
 cumbed to him. 
 16*
 
 186 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 
 
 Unfortunately for her, he was thrown out of his car- 
 riage one day, a month afterwards, and killed. I think 
 he would have provided for her had he lived ; I will 
 do him the justice to say this. As it was, she was left 
 penniless. Worse, for even her reputation was lost 
 now. 
 
 Let me be brief. She became a prostitute ; the little 
 girls grew up to enter upon the same living death. 
 You start, Madame Society ; you do not like that word 
 prostitute. Let me tell you that prostitution is one of 
 your greatest protectors. Unregulated, it is an evil, 
 too; with proper regulation it becomes a protection 
 only. 
 
 I have done. I have written more than I originally 
 designed. It was my intention to show only how I 
 came to take my first step in crime, and now I will 
 close. 
 
 There is many and many a woman who, finding her- 
 self unable to make an honest living, or to procure 
 honest work at something more than starvation wages, 
 is listening to the voice of the tempter. There is many 
 and many a starving child being reared in ignorance * 
 and crime, being educated in the school of sin. And 
 there is many and many a family, who, deprived of 
 their natural supporter, shunned and pointed at as the 
 
 * A late report of the Commissioner of Education shows that there 
 are 1,700,000 illiterate white youths and adults in the country, and 
 another half million of children under ten growing up in ignorance. 
 In 1860, according to the census, there were 346,893 illiterate adults 
 of foreign birth, and 871,418 native born. There were in Pennsyl- 
 vania, 36,000; New York, 20,000; Ohio, 41,000; Indiana, 54,000, 
 etc. These figures, be it remembered, though as full as can be 
 ascertained, necessarily fall Jar short of the truth.
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 187 
 
 wife and children of a criminal, unable to secure the 
 necessaries of life, and rendered desperate by trouble, 
 are drifting surely and rapidly into the ranks of the 
 enemies of law and society. Who will save them? 
 Who will rescue them before it is too late? 
 
 Oh ! that there were some office under the law charged 
 with the duty of caring for them. It is the law that 
 has deprived them of their natural protector. It is 
 right that the man who commits a crime should be 
 punished. It is wrong that the innocent should be 
 made to suffer for his crime. 
 
 Oh ! I repeat, that there were some office under the 
 law charged with the duty of caring for them ; of 
 aiding those who would, to emigrate to some new place, 
 where, their history unknown, they could begin life 
 anew ; of seeing that the children were properly edu- 
 cated ; that the wife, and those of the offspring who 
 are able, were provided with suitable work, for I do 
 not ask the law to encourage idleness, work by 
 means of which they could earn an honest living, with- 
 out feeling that they were dependent on charity, with- 
 out feeling their pride hurt. For pride, of some kind 
 or other, is the most natural and strongest feeling im- 
 planted in the human heart ; pride, which will keep 
 the greatest coward on the battle-field, and force him 
 to be brave. If, perchance, there be a case found 
 where the people refuse absolutely to work, there are 
 the vagrant acts. 
 
 But it would be a waste of time for me to stop and 
 elaborate the particulars of the plan I have in my 
 mind. Though such an office, properly conducted, 
 would, in a short time, become self-supporting, and
 
 188 THE WOKLD TO BLAME. 
 
 even yield a revenue, I can see no prospect of its 
 establishment. Modern philanthropy consists in 
 show ; in the erection of grand buildings, egotistically 
 called after the founder, for the approbation of the 
 world ; in asking the poor, in words of patronizing 
 pity, to walk in, instead of your taking the trouble to 
 find them out. And yet you know well enough that 
 the really poor are not the ones who go begging through 
 the streets are not the ones who go seeking after 
 charity. If they were, you would never have to read 
 in your paper the words " Died of Starvation." 
 
 Listen ! The condition of the masses is growing 
 worse and worse. The spirit of Communism is spread- 
 ing rapidly, and undermining the foundations of 
 society the spirit of Communism in its very worst 
 form. Unless some great change in the condition of 
 mankind occurs soon, the world will wake some day 
 to regret its neglect. I can see a revolution approach- 
 ing ; I can see, though dimly, the change that is going 
 to take place, a change which may be effected by 
 peaceable measures, but which is far more likely to be 
 the result of a Social War, and the shedding of streams 
 of human blood. CHARLES WILTON. 
 
 P. S. Says Victor Hugo, " The three great problems 
 of the age, the degradation of man by poverty, the 
 ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of 
 childhood by physical and spiritual night, are not 
 solved." 
 
 I have cheated the gallows. With my dying 
 breath I swear that the paper which I executed before 
 the jailer the other day is the solemn truth. To the
 
 THE WORLD TO BLAME. 189 
 
 prison officials, who have treated me so kindly during 
 my imprisonment, I return my sincere thanks, and 
 also to the clergymen who would have consoled me in 
 my last hours, and I ask their pardon for refusing to 
 receive them. All I can say is, that if I had received 
 the same treatment in my youth that I have received 
 during my imprisonment, I would never have been 
 brought to this pass. CHARLES WILTON. 
 
 That was all. But, oh, what a scathing commentary 
 upon society those last few words were ! 
 
 "If 1 had received the same treatment in my youth 
 that I have received during my imprisonment, I would 
 never have been brought to this pass." * 
 
 Philosopher ! philanthropist ! humanitarian ! Re- 
 member those words ; they contain plenty of food for 
 thought and reflection. They were the last words of 
 a criminal who knew what he was saying, who was 
 conscious of their meaning. They showed that he 
 might have been made something other than he was. 
 They said : 
 
 "The way to prevent crime is not to punish the man, 
 
 but to guard and look after the boy." 
 ******* 
 
 No one ever knew who it was furnished the mur- 
 derer of poor, unfortunate Alice, with the means to 
 commit his last terrible crime. That was a secret 
 which Mary Farly carried with her to the grave, and 
 whatever suspicions the jailer might have had, he 
 wisely kept them to himself. 
 
 Philip Marten's confession did not give the name 
 
 * The identical words used by a celebrated criminal. 
 14* L
 
 THE WOULD TO BLAME. 
 
 of the person who had aided him in gaining an en- 
 trance to his victim's house. With that honor which 
 is said to exist among thieves, he declined to reveal it. 
 
 True to the promise she had made him, Mary Farly 
 allowed a year to elapse after his death before she made 
 the true facts in relation to the murder of Leslie Wynd- 
 ham public. 
 
 How they were received, and. the surprise and ex- 
 citement they created, can better be imagined than de- 
 scribed. They carried with them the force of truth, 
 and little by little other circumstances came to light, 
 which proved conclusively the innocence of the un- 
 fortunate young man who had fallen a victim to popular 
 excitement; yet, notwithstanding all this, there are 
 many people living to-day who still continue to believe 
 him guilty. The injury which the world has done to 
 him can never be fully atoned for ; the life they had 
 taken it was impossible to return. 
 
 And now a few words more and we have done. 
 
 Most of the events which we have narrated had their 
 origin in Mrs. Crosswell's house, between Leslie Wynd- 
 ham, James Farly, and his wife, Mary. Who was to 
 blame ? Some of you will say the woman, for she did 
 not do her full duty as a wife. Others will place the 
 blame on James Farly, and some will be found who 
 will blame Leslie Wyndham for interfering between 
 them. As for ourselves, we might say one, we might 
 say the other, and yet again we might say all three. 
 However, we leave it to you to decide, only caution- 
 ing you to be careful how you judge, lest you, too, be 
 
 IN FAULT. 
 
 THE END.