me and
love me. It took some time to shape itself, but there it is, and I
have come. I cannot put my feelings into words properly. Words seem
so poor, so inadequate! Can't you understand?"

The picture of his mother's face rose up before Paul's eyes as his
father spoke, and with it the remembrance of the long years of pain,
sorrow, and loneliness.

"Do you not understand?" asked the judge again.

"I understand my mother's sufferings," said Paul. "I understand how,
when she was a young girl, forsaken, disgraced, she suffered agonies
which cannot be put into words. I understand how she tramped all the
way from Scotland to Cornwall, the home of her mother's people. I
understand what she felt towards the man who betrayed her, especially
when her only child was born in a workhouse, a nameless pauper! I
understand that!"

The judge stood with bowed head. He might have been stunned by some
heavy blow. He rocked to and fro, and for a moment Paul thought he was
going to fall.

"Yes," he said presently, "I deserve it all. Even the circumstances
which I might plead do not extenuate me."

"What were they?" asked Paul.

For a moment he had become interested in the past. He wanted to know
what this man had to tell him, what excuses he had to make.

"You won my mother as Douglas Graham. Whence the change of name? I
suppose you masqueraded in Scotland as Douglas Graham because you did
not wish your true name to be known? You're a villain, and you thought
if you called yourself Bolitho that villainy could not be traced. I am
not one who quotes rag-tags of religious sentiment as a rule, but there
are two sayings which occur to my mind just now. One is, 'Be sure your
sin will find you out,' and another, 'Though the mills of God grind
slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.' It may be all nonsense in
most cases, but just for the moment it seems as though there were
something in it!"

"Paul," said the judge, "as I have said, I know I deserve nothing at
your hands save the scorn and contempt which you evidently feel for me,
but is there no means whatever of bridging over this awful gulf? I
would give my life to do so!"

"No," said Paul. "I am no theologian, and yet I cannot close my eyes
to the fact that sin and penalty go together--only, the injustice of it
is that the penalty not only falls on the head of the one who sins but
on the head of the innocent."

"Then you can never forgive me?" said the judge,