speak unless you gave me leave to speak, or if you should die
before me. It was but a day before the lad was born. So have I kept my
word. But now you shall speak. Ay, then, but you shall speak, or I'll
break my word to her, to do right by her son. She herself would speak
if she was here, and I'll answer her, if ever I see her after Purgatory,
for speaking now."

The old man drew himself up in his chair as though in pain, and said
very slowly, almost thickly: "I shall answer also for all I did. The
spirit moved me. He is of my blood--his mother was dead--in his veins
is the blood that runs in mine. His father--aristocrat, spendthrift,
adventurer, renegade, who married her in secret, and left her, bidding
her return to me, until he came again, and she to bear him a child--was
he fit to bring up the boy?"

He breathed heavily, his face became wan and haggard, as he continued:
"Restless on land or sea, for ever seeking some new thing, and when he
found it, and saw what was therein, he turned away forgetful. God put it
into my heart to abjure him and the life around him. The Voice made me
rescue the child from a life empty and bare and heartless and proud.
When he returned, and my child was in her grave, he came to me in
secret; he claimed the child of that honest lass whom he had married
under a false name. I held my hand lest I should kill him, man of peace
as I am. Even his father--Quaker though he once became--did we not know
ere the end that he had no part or lot with us, that he but experimented
with his soul, as with all else? Experiment--experiment--experiment,
until at last an Eglington went exploring in my child's heart, and sent
her to her grave--the God of Israel be her rest and refuge! What should
such high-placed folk do stooping out of their sphere to us who walk in
plain paths? What have we in common with them? My soul would have none
of them--masks of men, the slaves of riches and titles, and tyrants over
the poor."

His voice grew hoarse and high, and his head bent forward. He spoke as
though forgetful of Soolsby's presence: "As the East is from the West,
so were we separate from these lovers of this world, the self-indulgent,
the hard-hearted, the proud. I chose for the child that he should stay
with me and not go to him, to remain among his own people and his own
class. He was a sinister, an evil man. Was the child to be trusted with
him?"

"The child was his own child," broke in Soolsby. "Your daug