nd him when Hattie
Sterling's disappearance had become a strange thing.

XV

"DEAR, DAMNED, DELIGHTFUL TOWN"

When Joe was taken, there was no spirit or feeling left in him. He moved
mechanically, as if without sense or volition. The first impression he
gave was that of a man over-acting insanity. But this was soon removed
by the very indifference with which he met everything concerned with his
crime. From the very first he made no effort to exonerate or to
vindicate himself. He talked little and only in a dry, stupefied way. He
was as one whose soul is dead, and perhaps it was; for all the little
soul of him had been wrapped up in the body of this one woman, and the
stroke that took her life had killed him too.

The men who examined him were irritated beyond measure. There was
nothing for them to exercise their ingenuity upon. He left them nothing
to search for. Their most damning question he answered with an apathy
that showed absolutely no interest in the matter. It was as if some one
whom he did not care about had committed a crime and he had been called
to testify. The only thing which he noticed or seemed to have any
affection for was a little pet dog which had been hers and which they
sometimes allowed to be with him after the life sentence had been passed
upon him and when he was awaiting removal. He would sit for hours with
the little animal in his lap, caressing it dumbly. There was a mute
sorrow in the eyes of both man and dog, and they seemed to take comfort
in each other's presence. There was no need of any sign between them.
They had both loved her, had they not? So they understood.

Sadness saw him and came back to the Banner, torn and unnerved by the
sight. "I saw him," he said with a shudder, "and it 'll take more
whiskey than Jack can give me in a year to wash the memory of him out of
me. Why, man, it shocked me all through. It 's a pity they did n't send
him to the chair. It could n't have done him much harm and would have
been a real mercy."

And so Sadness and all the club, with a muttered "Poor devil!" dismissed
him. He was gone. Why should they worry? Only one more who had got into
the whirlpool, enjoyed the sensation for a moment, and then swept
dizzily down. There were, indeed, some who for an earnest hour
sermonised about it and said, "Here is another example of the pernicious
influence of the city on untrained negroes. Oh, is there no way to keep
these people from rushing away f