Since the day of Chester's death, a great change had fallen upon the Mayor. He went to his office as usual, and performed its duties with habitual exactitude, but he never entered the Aldermen's tea-room again. When his political friends called upon him to accomplish any unfinished business, such as giving out contracts long before they were advertised by law--selling city property for a song to confederates, who were certain to allow a portion of the profits to flow back into greedy official pockets--or empowering some favorite to negotiate worthless real estate, and more worthless goods, for which the ever-enduring people were compelled to pay fabulous prices--for in all these things, directly or indirectly, he had been engaged--Farnham resolutely refused to enter into these transactions more. He felt in the depths of his heart, that the demoralizing influences consequent upon those half-secret, half-audacious speculations had led him to the brink--nay, had actually plunged him into a great crime. Again and again he had reconsidered the events of Chester's trial and death, following so closely on each other, with a hope of finding something that might remove the terrible responsibility from his conscience. But his stubborn and acute reason would not be convinced by the sophistry that had so often deceived the public. He had no power to blind his own conscience, and that told him, more and more loudly every hour, that his cruel acts had murdered a blameless fellow creature, directly almost as if the deed had been accomplished by a blow. Yes, Joseph had uttered the right word--it was murder. True there was no earthly tribunal to reach his impalpable crime, for the law recognizes only physical violence by which death is accomplished. But there is a just God, before whose high court, sooner or later, will be arraigned the bloodless murderer, whose dagger has been words--low whispers, and assassin machinations--or perchance neglect, and the sweeping back of warm affections on a true heart. There the all-seeing One, who judges the thought as well as the act will make no distinction between life drained drop by drop from the soul, and that sent forth at a blow with the red hand. These startling truths fastened themselves at last upon his conviction, breaking through his worldliness and all the hard accumulations which a life of underground politics had heaped upon a nature capable of great good.