anything or to ask
anything. I think I will leave you now--that is, unless I can do
anything for you. You do not need money, do you?"

He did not know what he was saying. His bewildered brain was
expressing itself in an inconsequent sort of way. He was just a
creature of impulse, and that was all.

"Money!" snarled the woman. "Money! when my son is lying in a prison
cell waiting for the hangman!"

"Yes," he said, and his voice seemed as the voice of one far away. "In
a prison cell, my son! my son! It is right that I should suffer, but
surely he ought not to suffer!"

He rose to his feet and walked unsteadily towards the door.

"May I go now? You know where I am staying. If I can be of any
service to you, let me know."

"And that's all? You have nothing more to say?"

"What can there be more?" he said. "You can do what you will; I will
deny nothing."

"But what are you going to do?" she asked again.

"Do? What is there to do? I cannot tell; I am just in the dark, Jean,
but perhaps a light will come presently." And then, without another
word, he found his way along the narrow passage into the dark,
forbidding street.

CHAPTER XXI

TRAVAIL

For more than an hour Judge Bolitho tramped the streets of Manchester,
unheeding whither he went and as little knowing. He was vainly trying
to understand what he had heard, trying to bring some order out of the
chaos of his thoughts and feelings. Everything was confused,
bewildering. He was like a man in a dream. The experiences through
which he had passed refused to shape themselves definitely. A mist
hung before the eyes of his mind, and yet he knew it was no dream. It
was all real, terribly real, and presently everything would stand out
before him with a ghastly clearness. Even now one thing was plain
enough, one fact impressed itself upon the tablets of his brain--Paul
Stepaside was his son. The interview he had had with the woman he
deceived was in the background; even although past memories had been
roused and the deeds of his youth had been brought before him with
awful clearness, they were as nothing compared with this fact of facts.
He did not know he had a son; he never dreamt of such a thing. During
the long years which had elapsed since he parted with Jean at the
lonely inn near the Scottish border he had often wondered what had
become of her, wondered, too, whether those past days would ever be
resurrected; but the thought that