d an opportunity of getting rid
of them.

In this statement Professor Webster denied all premeditation. Dr. Putnam
asked him solemnly whether he had not, immediately before the crime,
meditated at any time on the advantages that would accrue to him
from Parkman's death. Webster replied "Never, before God!" He had, he
protested, no idea of doing Parkman an injury until the bitter tongue
of the latter provoked him. "I am irritable and violent," he said, "a
quickness and brief violence of temper has been the besetting sin of my
life. I was an only child, much indulged, and I have never secured the
control over my passions that I ought to have acquired early; and the
consequence is--all this!" He denied having told Parkman that he was
going to settle with him that afternoon, and said that he had asked him
to come to the college with the sole object of pleading with him for
further indulgence. He explained his convulsive seizure at the time
of his arrest by his having taken a dose of strychnine, which he had
carried in his pocket since the crime. In spite of these statements and
the prayers of the unfortunate man's wife and daughters, who, until his
confession to Dr. Putnam, had believed implicity in his innocence, the
Council decided that the law must take its course, and fixed August 30
as the day of execution.

The Professor resigned himself to his fate. He sent for Littlefield and
his wife, and expressed his regret for any injustice he had done them:
"All you said was true. You have misrepresented nothing." Asked by the
sheriff whether he was to understand from some of his expressions that
he contemplated an attempt at suicide, "Why should I?" he replied,
"all the proceedings in my case have been just... and it is just that
I should die upon the scaffold in accordance with that sentence."
"Everybody is right," he said to the keeper of the jail, "and I am
wrong. And I feel that, if the yielding up of my life to the injured
law will atone, even in part, for the crime I have committed, that is a
consolation."

In a letter to the Reverend Francis Parkman he expressed deep contrition
for his guilt. He added one sentence which may perhaps fairly express
the measure of premeditation that accompanied his crime. "I had never,"
he wrote, "until the two or three last interviews with your brother,
felt towards him anything but gratitude for his many acts of kindness
and friendship."

Professor Webster met his death with fortitu