nd
that he had found a man who was very near to God; and so he put all
other things aside, and saying that he was truly sorry that he had not
sought him out before, asked him in gentle and loving words to tell
him all the old sad story. And there, sitting in the mean room, he
heard the tale.

John spoke slowly and haltingly, as one who had little use of speech;
and the story was far different from what Herbert had believed. The
hoard was not that of John's mother, but John's own, which he had
entrusted to her. He had asked it of her for a purpose that seemed
good enough, to buy a little garden where he thought he could rear
fruits and flowers; but she had had the money so long that she
considered it to be her own. In telling the story, John laid no blame
upon her, but found much to say against himself, and he seemed bowed
down with utter contrition that he had ever asked it of her. She had
struck him, it seemed, and so his wrath had overmastered him, and he
had torn the money from her hands and gone out. Then she had fallen
sick, and died before his return, and after that no one had been
willing to listen to him. Herbert had asked him what had become of the
money, and John told him, with a sort of shame, that he had thrust it
into the church-box--"I could not touch the price of blood," he said.

Then Herbert spoke very lovingly to him and tried to comfort him, but
John said that he knew himself to be the most miserable of sinners,
and that he could not be forgiven, and that he deserved his chastising
every whit. And he told Herbert a tale of secret suffering and hunger
and cold and weariness, such as had never fallen on Herbert's ears,
but all without any thought of pity for himself--indeed, he said, God
was very good to him; for He let him live, and even allowed him to
take pleasure in the green trees, and the waving grass, and the voices
of birds. "And some day," said John, "when I have suffered enough, I
think the Father will forgive me, for I am sorry for my sin."

The water stood in Herbert's eyes, but he found some words of comfort,
and knelt and prayed with the outcast, telling him that indeed he was
forgiven. And he saw a look of joy strike like sunlight across the
poor face, when he said that he would not fail to visit him. And he
further told him that he should come to the Parsonage next day, and he
would give him work to do; and then he shook his hand and departed, a
little gladder than he had been for a m