“How mad and monstrous it all seemed! Could it be that written on his hand, in characters that he could not read himself, but that another c...

“How mad and monstrous it all seemed! Could it be that written on his hand, in characters that he could not read himself, but that another could decipher, was some fearful secret of sin, some blood-red sign of crime? Was there no escape possible? Were we no better than chessmen, moved by an unseen power, ...