nerves.

"They don't come back here, my boy, once they tread the path of that
poor child. They simplify morality in Quinton along with all else, and
the one unpardonable sin suffices for them. They grade their society by
their attitude toward that. But old Thorndyke took this place into
consideration as a beginning, for he aided me in my search when he was
convinced of my determination."

"And you never found her?" Thornly was leaning forward with hands close
clasped before him, his face showing tense in the red glow of the fire.

"Thorndyke did."

"Ah!"

"Yes, the poor little thing had been rescued after a fashion. Soon
after I left her, a fellow who had always had a liking for her, a chap
who had worked in the shop with her, was willing to marry her and she
consented. You wouldn't think she could, quite, with those eyes, but she
did! The man was good to her; but the city, and other things, were too
much, and she lived only a short time. There was a child! I wanted to do
something for it; I had a passion of remorse then, but Thorndyke told me
that the child's best interest lay in my letting her alone. She was
respected and comfortable. For me to interfere would be to throw
dishonor upon the dead mother and a cloud upon the child. All had been
buried and forgotten in the mother's grave. About all I could do to
better the business was to keep my hands off; and that I did!"

Devant's head drooped upon his chest, and Thornly felt a kind of pity
that stirred a new liking for the man.

"You think the lawyer told you the true facts?" he asked; "true in every
particular?"

Devant started up and turned deep eyes upon the questioner.

"Great heavens! yes. You do not know Thorndyke. He was about as cast
iron an old Puritan as ever survived the times. He was devoted to our
family, and served us to his life's end as counsellor and friend; but
not for the hope of heaven would he have lied! No, that's why I confided
in Thorndyke, I could not have trusted any one else. I knew he would
never respect me afterward; he never did. But he served me as no one
else could, and I bore his contempt with positive gratitude."

"But you could never forget?" Thornly spoke almost affectionately. The
older man looked up.

"No. And as I grow older I thank God I never could. We ought not forget
such things as that. We ought to expiate them as long as we live. I have
grown to take a kind of joy in the hurt of the memory, a kind of savage
e