him: since yesterday he had eaten nothing,--he had no
money to buy a meal; he was a felon,--who would give him work? "There's
some things certain in the world," he muttered.

"That was silly last night,--silly. And yet,--if there could have been a
chance!"

He looked up steadily into the sickly, discolored sky: nothing there but
the fog from these swamps. He had not wished so much that he could hear
of Martha and the children, when he looked up, as of something else
that he needed more. Even the foulest and most careless soul that God
ever made has some moments when it grows homesick, conscious of the
awful vacuum below its life, the Eternal Arm not being there. Yarrow was
neither foul nor careless. All his life, most in those years in the
prison, he had been hungry for Something to rest on, to own him.
Sometimes, when his evil behavior had seemed vilest to him, he had felt
himself trembling on the verge of a great forgiveness. But he could see
so little of the sky in the cell there,--only that three-cornered patch:
he had a fancy, that, if once he were out in the world that He made,--in
the free air,--that, if there were a God, he would find Him out. He had
not found Him.

He sat on the stump awhile, his hands over his eyes, then got down
slowly, buttoning his soggy waistcoat and coat.

"I don't see as there's a chance," he said, dully. "I was a fool to
think there was any better God than the one that"--digging his toe into
the frozen pools. "It's all ruled. I'm not one of the elect."

That was all. After that, he stood waiting for his brother.

"I'll help him. He's the best I know."

Even the faint sigh choked before it rose to his lips,--both manhood and
hope were so dead with inanition; yet a life's failure went in it.

While he stood waiting, Martha Yarrow sat by her kitchen-fire crying to
God to help him; but He knew what things were needed before she asked
Him.

Soule, with his gun and game-bag, had been coursing over the hills three
miles back, since four o'clock. He had bagged a squirrel or two, enough
to suffice for his morning's work, and now, his piece unloaded, came
stealthily towards the place of rendezvous. He had little hope that
Stephen would help him: he had made up his mind to go through the affair
alone. If _he_ did it, that involved--Pah! what was in a word? Men died
every day. He had quite resolved: Judith and he had talked the matter
over all night. But if Frazier were a younger man, and