said.

There was crape on Fannie's bell. His head went round and he held to the
door for support. Then he turned the knob and the door opened. He went
noiselessly in. At the door of Fannie's room he halted, sick with fear.
He knocked, a step sounded within, and his wife's face looked out upon
him. He could have screamed aloud with relief.

"It ain't you!" he whispered huskily.

"No, it 's him. He was killed in a fight at the race-track. Some o' his
frinds are settin' up. Come in."

He went in, a wild, strange feeling surging at his heart. She showed him
into the death-chamber.

As he stood and looked down upon the face of his enemy, still, cold, and
terrible in death, the recognition of how near he had come to crime
swept over him, and all his dead faith sprang into new life in a
glorious resurrection. He stood with clasped hands, and no word passed
his lips. But his heart was crying, "Thank God! thank God! this man's
blood is not on my hands."

The gamblers who were sitting up with the dead wondered who the old fool
was who looked at their silent comrade and then raised his eyes as if in
prayer.

* * * * *

When Gibson was laid away, there were no formalities between Berry and
his wife; they simply went back to each other. New York held nothing for
them now but sad memories. Kit was on the road, and the father could not
bear to see his son; so they turned their faces southward, back to the
only place they could call home. Surely the people could not be cruel to
them now, and even if they were, they felt that after what they had
endured no wound had power to give them pain.

Leslie Oakley heard of their coming, and with her own hands re-opened
and refurnished the little cottage in the yard for them. There the
white-haired woman begged them to spend the rest of their days and be in
peace and comfort. It was the only amend she could make. As much to
satisfy her as to settle themselves, they took the cottage, and many a
night thereafter they sat together with clasped hands listening to the
shrieks of the madman across the yard and thinking of what he had
brought to them and to himself.

It was not a happy life, but it was all that was left to them, and they
took it up without complaint, for they knew they were powerless against
some Will infinitely stronger than their own.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Sport of the Gods, by Paul Laurence Dunbar

*** END OF THIS PROJE