148 
THE STRAND MAGAZINE. 
as a little lad. Tie would sob out all the 
truth, and she would surely forgive him and 
take him to her heart. 
And if she would not pardon, then at least 
he could die at home. He was tired of life, 
with no one to love or care for him, without 
even his own self-respect to hearten him for 
the fight, and his mother used to be pitiful 
to all sinners. It was his father who had 
stood between them, his grim, puritanical 
old father. 
But his father had been dead three months, 
and if, having freely confessed his sins, 
his mother pardoned, he might be able to 
believe that God also would pity and forgive. 
He had been a bad lot ; no one knew that 
better than he. Even now, two hours ago 
But of that last deed he did not repent ; 
he had been driven to it. lie had to' get to 
his mother, to look upon her face and to kiss 
her lips, and they had been deaf to his 
prayers, they had even sneered at him. 
He had been forced to the act, for how was 
he, scarcely able to drag himself along, to 
earn money for the journey this bitter winter 
season ? And he must see her, must read in 
her eyes that she still loved him before he 
begged from her. 
And at the first he had not been to blame. 
She would surely believe him when he told 
her face to face that before God he was inno- 
cent of that first charge. He had been 
innocent, but he had been shown no mercy. 
His friend, the man he loved and would 
have died to serve, had ruined him, and he 
had suffered in dogged, sullen silence that the 
other might go free, and his father had deemed 
him guilty. 
And as he pushed on, sighing and panting, 
dreary pictures floated in the filmy wreaths 
of the shifting mist before his weary eyes. 
He saw his mother stretching out her arms 
to him as, on his nineteenth birthday, he had 
turned his back upon his old home, his stern 
father’s admonishing words ringing in his 
ears. Then there rose before his eyes the 
face of his new friend with the beguiling, 
merry eyes and the smiling, boyish mouth. 
They had been fellow-clerks in a merchant’s 
office, and had lived and worked together. 
And then, two years later, had come the 
trial for theft, and the horrible, heart-numbing 
pain of a broken friendship and a shattered 
idol. 
Three years of penal servitude Francis 
Denham suffered wrongfully, and when he 
came out of prison the hand of every man 
seemed against him. His father sent him 
meagre supplies, but refused to see him or to 
allow him to correspond with his mother, 
and he had sunk to the depths. Several 
other short terms he had served for petty 
thefts, and on his release, three months before, 
he had been found fainting on a seat in one 
of the public parks, and had been conveyed 
raving in delirium to the nearest workhouse 
infirmary. 
Many weeks he lay there utterly helpless, 
and then at last his physical strength gradually 
returned ; but he was still sullen and dogged, 
His heart seemed to have died when his 
friend betrayed him, and his pleading letter to 
his mother had been returned to him torn up. 
But when he had lain in the infirmary nine 
weeks there had come a few almost illegible 
words from her. From the time he had been 
taken to the hospital she had had no know- 
ledge of his whereabouts, but indirectly she 
had now heard how to communicate with 
him, and in a few broken phrases she told him 
of his father’s death and of her own terribly 
impoverished condition, which would neces- 
sitate her leaving the old home at Christmas. 
Then suddenly his brain had seemed to 
recover its balance, and his heart had 
awakened to a positive agony of craving for 
a sight of his mother’s face and the sound of 
her voice. 
His recovery was now speedy, for he 
forced himself to eat and to exercise his 
enfeebled muscles, and at length came the 
December day when, still miserably weak, 
but with a determined purpose in his mind, 
he had said good-bye to the nurses and his 
companions in the infirmary ward, and had 
betaken himself to the office of the secretary 
of the institution. 
The stone passages were cold, and Francis 
Denham, accustomed for so long to the warm 
wards, shivered with the chill and a sense of 
acute nervousness. The office door was open, 
and while he hesitated, endeavouring to screw 
up his courage to enter, the sound of his own 
name came to him from within the room. 
“ So we get shot of Francis Denham at 
last,” the secretary remarked. 
“ Yes, thank Heaven,” the medical officer 
replied. “ His has been a tough, thankless 
case. I really began to think 1 should have 
to put him among the ‘ lunies 7 ; but 1 fancy 
now it’s the temper that’s been to blame, not 
the brain, for a more ungracious, ill-con- 
ditioned patient Eve seldom come across.” 
“ Ah, jail-bird” the other said, grimly; 
“ they are generally thankless brutes.” 
“ Good Lord, is^ that so ? What a pity ! 
Such a handsome chap, too.” 
Yes. When he first came in his good 
