obscurity whence it came, and had not been mentioned since. To outward
seeming they had gone on as before. As Charley saw the knotted brows,
the staring eyes, the clinched hands, the figure of the woodsman rigid in
its agony of remorse, he said to himself: "What right had I to save this
man's life? To have paid for his crime would have been easier for him.
I knew he was guilty. Perhaps it was my duty to see that every
condition, to the last shade of the law, was satisfied, but was it
justice to the poor devil himself? There he sits with a load on him that
weighs him down every hour of his life. I called him back; I gave him
life; but I gave him memory and remorse, and the ghosts that haunt him:
the voice in his ear, the touch on his arm, the some one that is
'waiting--waiting--waiting!' That is what I did, and that is what the
brother of the Cure did for me. He drew me back. He knew I was a
drunkard, but he drew me back. I might have been a murderer like
Portugais. The world says I was a thief, and a thief I am until I prove
to the world I am innocent--and wreck three lives! How much of Jo's
guilt is guilt? How much remorse should a man suffer to pay the debt of
a life? If the law is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, how
much hourly remorse and torture, such as Jo's, should balance the eye or
the tooth or the life? I wonder, now!"

He leaned over, and, helping Jo to his feet, gently forced him down upon
a bench near. "All right, Jo, my friend," he said. "I understand.
We'll drink the gall together."

They sat and looked at each other in silence.

At length Charley leaned over and touched Jo on the shoulder.

"Why did you want to save yourself?" he said.