Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/364

 the top of the hill, the hope would probably long ago have faded. But this man knew she was always there, thinking, watching, eagerly planning in aid of any new scheme in the long fight for freedom.

"The alkaloid was present, that is certain," he told Kennedy. "My wife has told you that. It was scientifically proved. There is no use in attacking that."

Later on he remarked: "Perhaps you think it strange that one in the very shadow of the death chair"—the word stuck in his throat—"can talk so impersonally of his own case. Sometimes I think it is not my case, but some one else's. And then—that door."

He shuddered and turned away from it. On one side was life, such as it was; on the other, instant death. No wonder he pleaded with Kennedy.

"Why, Walter," exclaimed Craig, as we walked back to the warden's office to telephone to town for a car to take us up to East Point, "whenever he looks out of that cage he sees it. He may close his eyes—and still see it. When he exercises, he sees it. Thinking by day and dreaming by night, it is always there. Think of the terrible hours that man must pass, knowing of the little woman eating her heart out. Is he really guilty? I must find out. If he is not, I never saw a greater tragedy than this slow, remorseless approach of death, in that daily, hourly shadow of the little green door."

East Point was a queer old town on the upper Hudson, with a varying assortment of industries. Just outside, the old house of the Godwins stood on a bluff overlooking the majestic river. Kennedy had wanted