in robbers that ever tormented the land, and I was as
wicked as the worst."

Alas! The hermit felt that his heart was breaking. Was this how he
looked to the Heavenly Father--like a thief, a cruel mountain robber? He
could hardly speak, and the tears streamed from his old eyes, but he
gathered strength to ask one more question. "I beg you," he said, "if
you have ever done a single good deed in your life, remember it now, and
tell it to me"; for he thought that even one good deed would save him
from utter despair.

"Yes, one," the clown said, "but it was so small, it is not worth
telling; my life has been worthless."

"Tell me that one!" pleaded the hermit.

"Once," said the man, "our band broke into a convent garden and stole
away one of the nuns, to sell as a slave or to keep for a ransom. We
dragged her with us over the rough, long way to our mountain camp, and
set a guard over her for the night. The poor thing prayed to us so
piteously to let her go! And as she begged, she looked from one hard
face to another, with trusting, imploring eyes, as if she could not
believe men could be really bad. Father, when her eyes met mine
something pierced my heart! Pity and shame leaped up, for the first
time, within me. But I made my face as hard and cruel as the rest, and
she turned away, hopeless.

"When all was dark and still, I stole like a cat to where she lay bound.
I put my hand on her wrist and whispered, 'Trust me, and I will take you
safely home.' I cut her bonds with my knife, and she looked at me to
show that she trusted. Father, by terrible ways that I knew, hidden from
the others, I took her safe to the convent gate. She knocked; they
opened; and she slipped inside. And, as she left me, she turned and
said, 'God will remember.'

"That was all. I could not go back to the old bad life, and I had never
learned an honest way to earn my bread. So I became a clown, and must be
a clown until I die."

"No! no! my son," cried the hermit, and now his tears were tears of joy.
"God has remembered; your soul is in his sight even as mine, who have
prayed and preached for forty years. Your treasure waits for you on the
heavenly shore just as mine does."

"As _yours_? Father, you mock me!" said the clown.

But when the hermit told him the story of his prayer and the angel's
answer, the poor clown was transfigured with joy, for he knew that his
sins were forgiven. And when the hermit went home to his mountain, the
clown w