ANGUISH AND BLISS.
Joe Garson had shouted his confession without a second of
reflection. But the result must have been the same had he taken
years of thought. Between him and her as the victim of the law,
there could be no hesitation for choice. Indeed, just now, he
had no heed to his own fate. The prime necessity was to save
her, Mary, from the toils of the law that were closing around
her. For himself, in the days to come, there would be a ghastly
dread, but there would never be regret over the cost of saving
her. Perhaps, some other he might have let suffer in his
stead--not her! Even, had he been innocent, and she guilty of the
crime, he would still have taken the burden of it on his own
shoulders. He had saved her from the waters--he would save her
until the end, as far as the power in him might lie. It was thus
that, with the primitive directness of his reverential love for
the girl, he counted no sacrifice too great in her behalf. Joe
Garson was not a good man, at the world esteems goodness. On the
contrary, he was distinctly an evil one, a menace to the society
on which he preyed constantly.
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