Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic
page 289 of 402 (71%)
escaped from lifelong imprisonment, and feels for the first time what it
is to be free!"

"Ah, my friend," Celia said, shaking her head slowly, "I'm afraid you
deceive yourself. You are not by any means free. You are only looking
out of the window of your prison, as you call it. The doors are locked,
just the same."

"I will smash them!" he declared, with confidence. "Or for that matter,
I HAVE smashed them--battered them to pieces. You don't realize what
progress I have made, what changes there have been in me since that
night, you remember that wonderful night! I am quite another being, I
assure you! And really it dates from way beyond that--why, from the very
first evening, when I came to you in the church. The window in Father
Forbes' room was open, and I stood by it listening to the music next
door, and I could just faintly see on the dark window across the
alley-way a stained-glass picture of a woman. I suppose it was the
Virgin Mary. She had hair like yours, and your face, too; and that is
why I went into the church and found you. Yes, that is why."

Celia regarded him with gravity. "You will get yourself into great
trouble, my friend," she said.

"That's where you're wrong," put in Theron. "Not that I'd mind any
trouble in this wide world, so long as you called me 'my friend,' but
I'm not going to get into any at all. I know a trick worth two of that.
I've learned to be a showman. I can preach now far better than I used
to, and I can get through my work in half the time, and keep on the
right side of my people, and get along with perfect smoothness. I
was too green before. I took the thing seriously, and I let every
DigitalOcean Referral Badge