decided that he had received some
severe shock. He feared too for his heart, for the patient constantly
held his hands pressed against his bosom. In vain the doctor pleaded; he
would not take them down, and when the wife added her word, the
physician gave up, and after prescribing, left, much puzzled in mind.

"It 's a strange case," he said; "there 's something more than the
nervous shock that makes him clutch his chest like that, and yet I have
never noticed signs of heart trouble in Oakley. Oh, well, business worry
will produce anything in anybody."

It was soon common talk about the town about Maurice Oakley's attack. In
the seclusion of his chamber he was saying to his wife:

"Ah, Leslie, you and I will keep the secret. No one shall ever know."

"Yes, dear, but--but--what of Berry?"

"What of Berry?" he cried, starting up excitedly. "What is Berry to
Frank? What is that nigger to my brother? What are his sufferings to the
honour of my family and name?"

"Never mind, Maurice, never mind, you are right."

"It must never be known, I say, if Berry has to rot in jail."

So they wrote a lie to Frank, and buried the secret in their breasts,
and Oakley wore its visible form upon his heart.

XIV

FRANKENSTEIN

Five years is but a short time in the life of a man, and yet many things
may happen therein. For instance, the whole way of a family's life may
be changed. Good natures may be made into bad ones and out of a soul of
faith grow a spirit of unbelief. The independence of respectability may
harden into the insolence of defiance, and the sensitive cheek of
modesty into the brazen face of shamelessness. It may be true that the
habits of years are hard to change, but this is not true of the first
sixteen or seventeen years of a young person's life, else Kitty Hamilton
and Joe could not so easily have become what they were. It had taken
barely five years to accomplish an entire metamorphosis of their
characters. In Joe's case even a shorter time was needed. He was so
ready to go down that it needed but a gentle push to start him, and once
started, there was nothing within him to hold him back from the depths.
For his will was as flabby as his conscience, and his pride, which
stands to some men for conscience, had no definite aim or direction.

Hattie Sterling had given him both his greatest impulse for evil and for
good. She had at first given him his gentle push, but when she saw that
his collapse woul