mine. I wish to see fair play. Why are you here? Have you done
anything--what have you done?"

The young man moved restlessly. He was confused by the suddenness of
the question, which Larry's manner deprived of any suggestion of
rudeness.

"Did I intimate I had done anything?" He laughed. "I'm come to make a
statement to the proper ones--when I find them. I'll go over now and
hear a bit of this trial, since you mention it."

He spoke sadly and wearily, but he felt no resentment at the older
man's inquisitiveness. Larry's face expressed too much kindliness to
make resentment possible, but Richard was ill at ease to be talking
thus intimately with a stranger who had but just chanced upon him. He
rose to leave.

"Don't go. Don't go yet. Wait a bit--God, man! Wait! I've a thing to
tell you." Larry leaned forward, and his face worked and tears
glistened in his eyes as he looked keenly up into his son's face.
"You're a beautiful lad--a man--I'm--You're strong and fine--I'm
ashamed to tell it you--ashamed I've never looked on you since
then--until now. I should have given all up and found you. Forgive me.
Boy!--I'm your father--your father!" He rose and stood looking levelly
in his son's eyes, holding out both shaking hands. Richard took them
in his and held them--but could not speak.

The constraint of witnesses was not upon them, for they were quite
alone on the piazza, but the emotion of each of them was beyond words.
Richard swallowed, and waited, and then with no word they both sat
down and drew their chairs closer together. The simple act helped
them.

"I've been nigh on to a lifetime longing for you, lad."

"And I for you, father."

"That's the name I've been hungering to hear--"

"And I to speak--" Still they looked in each other's eyes. "And we
have a great deal to tell each other! I'm almost sorry--that--that--that
I've found you at last--for to do my duty will be harder now. I had no
one to care--particularly before--unless--"

"Unless a lass, maybe?"

"One I've been loving and true to--but long ago given up--we won't
speak of her. We'll have to talk a great deal, and there's so little
time! I must--must give myself up, father, to the law."

"Couldn't you put it off a bit, lad?"

Larry could not have told why he kept silent so long in regard to the
truth of the trial. It might have been a vague liking to watch the
workings of his son's real self and a desire to test him to the full.
From a hint d