re I could not make known my intentions before; but this I
do wish to say, here, in the presence of all who have gathered together
to witness this trial--Paul Stepaside is my lawful son, and,
unknowingly, I have sinned against him grievously and greatly. His
mother is my lawful wife--how and where she became so it is not for me
to tell you or for you to know--but such is the truth. Concerning the
fact itself, however, I wish it to be made known--as it will be made
known--that his mother is my lawful wife, and that he is my lawful son,
and that I do here and now confess the wrong which I have done to him,
even although that wrong was to me largely unknown. In a sense there
is no need that I should make this explanation in this way; but I do it
because my conscience compels me to do so and because I wish here and
now to ask my son's forgiveness."

He still spoke in the same slow, measured tones, his voice somewhat
husky, but every word reaching the ears of all present. And as he
spoke, Paul seemed to feel as though the foundations of the world were
slipping away from under his feet. His thoughts of revenge were being
scattered to the winds. He had never dreamt of this; never in the
wildest of his imaginings had he thought Judge Bolitho would have made
such a confession. Even now he could not understand it, much less
realise it; but he felt it to be the most tragic moment of his life.
He felt as if the world could never be the same to him again. And yet
he hated the judge. Why it was he could not tell; but even as he
spoke, even as he made this most momentous confession, his heart
steeled against his father. In spite of his humility, in spite of his
suffering, in spite of what it must have cost him to have spoken the
words to which he had just listened, he still hated him. The man had
wrecked his mother's life, robbed her of her girlhood, sent her away
into loneliness and sorrow, allowed her to bear her disgrace in
solitude. He had robbed him also of his boyhood, of his name. He had
ever been his enemy. From the first time they had met he had sought to
crush him; and he wondered, even now, with a mad wonder, whether there
were not some kind of ulterior motive prompting him to say these things.

The effect, however, upon the spectators, was entirely different.
Although his words seemed commonplace enough, there was something
pathetic in them. All present realised something of the inwardness of
that to which