"I will lay my heart open to you," answered Markheim . "This crime on which you find me is my last. On my way to it I have learned many lessons; itself is a lesson--a momentous lesson. Hitherto I have been driven with revolt to what I would not; I was a bond-slave to poverty, driven and scourged. There are robust virtues that can stand in these temptations; mine was not so; I had a thirst of pleasure. But to-day, and out of this deed, I pluck both warning and riches--both the power and a fresh resolve to be myself. I become in all things a free actor in the world; I begin to see myself all changed, these hands the agents of good, this heart at peace. Something comes over me out of the past--something of what I have dreamed on Sabbath evenings to the sound of the church organ, of what I for
