Drawing nearer, Priscilla recognized me, and gave me a kind and
friendly smile, but with a slight gesture, which I could not help
interpreting as an entreaty not to make myself known to Hollingsworth.
Nevertheless, an impulse took possession of me, and compelled me to
address him.
"I have come, Hollingsworth," said I, "to view your grand edifice for
the reformation of criminals. Is it finished yet?"
"No, nor begun," answered he, without raising his eyes. "A very
small one answers all my purposes."
Priscilla threw me an upbraiding glance. But I spoke again, with a
bitter and revengeful emotion, as if flinging a poisoned arrow at
Hollingsworth's heart.
"Up to this moment," I inquired, "how many criminals have you
reformed?"
"Not one," said Hollingsworth, with his eyes still fixed on the
ground. "Ever since we parted, I have been busy with a single
murderer."
Then the tears gushed into my eyes, and I forgave him; for I
remembered the wild energy, the passionate shriek, with which Zenobia
had spoken those words, "Tell him he has murdered me! Tell him that
I'll haunt him!"--and I knew what murderer he meant, and whose
vindictive shadow dogged the side where Priscilla was not.
The moral which presents itself to my reflections, as drawn from
Hollingsworth's character and errors, is simply this, that, admitting
what is called philanthropy, when adopted as a profession, to be
often useful by its energetic impulse to society at large, it is
perilous to the individual whose ruling passion, in one exclusive
channel, it thus becomes.
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