Page:The Valley of Fear.pdf/245

Rh It was just a benefit club and a meeting place for one’s fellows. Then I heard of this place,—curse the hour that the name first fell upon my ears!—and I came to better myself! My God! to better myself! My wife and three children came with me. I started a drygoods store on Market Square, and I prospered well. The word had gone round that I was a Freeman, and I was forced to join the local lodge, same as you did last night. I’ve the badge of shame on my forearm and something worse branded on my heart. I found that I was under the orders of a black villain and caught in a meshwork of crime. What could I do? Every word I said to make things better was taken as treason, same as it was last night. I can’t get away; for all I have in the world is in my store. If I leave the society, I know well that it means murder to me, and God knows what to my wife and children. Oh, Man, it is awful—awful!” He put his hands to his face, and his body shook with convulsive sobs.

McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. “You were too soft for the job,” said he. “You are the wrong sort for such work.”

“I had a conscience and a religion; but they [243]