They would
read, offer idle comments, perhaps, and straightway forget. That is the
wonder and the shame of it--that with these frequent warnings ringing
in our ears we are not warned. With these things continually forced
upon our attention we do not heed. With the demonstration before our
eyes we are not convinced. We are not aroused to the meaning of it all.
In his cell in the county jail, Sam Whaley heard that explosion and
knew what it was.
The Interpreter was right when he said, "Jake Vodell."
It was an hour, perhaps, after the Interpreter's friends had left the
hut when the old basket maker, who was still sitting at the window
watching the burning factory, heard an automobile approaching at a
frightful pace from the direction of the fire. The noise of the
speeding machine ceased with startling suddenness at the foot of the
stairway, and the Interpreter heard some one running up the steps with
headlong haste. Without pausing to knock, Adam Ward burst into the room
and stood panting and shaking with mad excitement before the man in the
wheel chair.
The Mill owner's condition was pitiful. By his eyes that were
glittering with wild, unnatural light, by the gray, twitching features,
the grotesque gestures, the trembling, jerking limbs, the Interpreter
knew that the last flickering gleam of reason had gone out.
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