and there was a world
of pleading in his voice.

"If your lordship will just think a moment," said Paul. "You have
asked me to try and understand you; will you try and understand me? I
am here in a prison cell, accused of murder. Possibly I shall be
hanged--although I mean to fight for my life," this he added grimly,
with set teeth and flashing eyes. "I am twenty-five years of age, and
it is not pleasant to think that one's life shall end in such a way!
Let me remind you of something, Mr. Justice Bolitho, and, in reminding
you of it, perhaps you will see that I have no reason to play the part
of the yielding and affectionate son. I was born in a workhouse. My
only name has been the name given to me because my mother was found
lying near a little hamlet called Stepaside. I was educated a pauper.
The parish paid the expenses of my learning a trade. When I was
seventeen my mother told me the story of her life, told me of my
father's villainy. What such a story would do for most men I don't
know, but this it did for me: it robbed me of everything most dear. It
killed in me all faith. It destroyed in me all belief in God and
Providence. When I went out into the world it seemed to me that the
only legacy I had was a legacy of hatred for the man who had robbed my
mother of her youth and of her honour, and me of my boyhood and of all
the things that make youth beautiful. I need not tell you my story
since. You know it too well. But, if I am hard and bitter, you have
made me what I am. Consciously or unconsciously, yours has been the
hand that has moulded me. Do you wonder, then, that I cannot respond
to this appeal for filial affection--that I cannot clasp my arms round
your neck like a hero in a fourth-rate melodrama? When you rob a man
of his faith in human nature and God, you rob him of everything, you
dry up the fountains of tenderness."

For a moment there was a silence between them, and then Paul went on:
"But where's my mother now? You say you saw her last night. What did
she tell you? What did you tell her? Do you know what has become of
her?"

"I scarcely know what I did tell her," replied the judge. "I was so
overwhelmed when she told me that you were my son that I was scarcely
capable of thinking. Besides, she seemed in no humour for asking
questions. She felt very bitterly towards me, naturally, and my mind
was numbed; I could not think."

"Perhaps you will tell _me_?" said Paul present