you--what you like. Let the world know. It doesn't matter. It's I that
matter--my life and my conscience and my soul that matter."

"Don't be too hard upon me," Silas besought him very humbly.

"Tell me about myself," said Paul.

Silas Finn wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and covered his
eyes with his hand. "That can only mean telling you about myself," he
said. "It's raking up a past which I had hoped, with God's help, to
bury. But I have sinned to-night, and it is my punishment to tell you.
And you have a right to know. My father was a porter in Covent Garden
Market. My mother--I've already mentioned--"

"Yes--the Sicilian and the barrel organ--I remember," said Paul, with a
shiver.

"I had a hard boyhood. But I rose a little above my class. I educated
myself more or less. At last I became assistant in a fishmonger's shop.
Our friend Simmons here and I were boys together. We fell in love with
the same girl. I married her. Not long afterward she gave way to drink.
I found that in all kinds of ways I had mistaken her character. I can't
describe your own mother to you. She had a violent temper. So had I. My
life was a hell upon earth. One day she goaded me beyond my endurance
and I struck at her with a knife. I meant at the bloodred instant to
kill her. But I didn't. I nearly killed her. I went to prison for three
years. When I came out she had vanished, taking you with her. In prison
I found the Grace of God and I vowed it should be my guide through
life. As soon as I was free from police supervision I changed my
name--I believe it's a good old Devonshire name; my father came from
there--the prison taint hung about it. Then, when I found I could
extend a miserable little business I had got together, I changed it
again to suit my trade. That's about all."

There was a spell of dead silence. The shrunken man, stricken with a
sense of his sin of oath-breaking, had Spoken without change of
attitude, his hand over his eyes. Paul, too, sat motionless, and
neither Jane nor Barney Bill spoke. Presently Silas Finn continued:

"For many years I tried to find my wife and son--but it was not God's
will. I have lived with the stain of murder on my soul"--his voice
sank--"and it has never been washed away. Perhaps it will be in God's
good time.... And I had condemned my son to a horrible existence--for I
knew my wife was not capable of bringing you up in the way of clean
living. I was right. Simmons has since told me