en't I?"

"Not yet! You're only beginning. It takes twenty years.--Oh, not of
hidden and secret repentance--but _open_ repentance, before all the
world! And square living. And your prayer to God each night for twenty
years for understanding and forgiveness!

"Go out and earn it," she said, walking to the door and opening it.
"Pity?--yes. Love? No--no--_no_! I've no use for you. I don't need you
now. My boy doesn't need you--we're able to stand alone. We've
_succeeded_! You? You're a failure--you're a broken-down, used-up,
hopeless failure--so much, I'm sorry for you, sorry.

"You didn't really think I'd ever take you back, did you, Will?" she
went on, eager to be fair even now. "I was only _sorry_ for you, that's
all. God knows, I'm sorry for any human being, woman or man, that has to
go through hell as I have. Twenty years? That'll leave you old, Will.
But--go serve it, in this town, as I have! And God have mercy on your
soul!"

She flung the door yet wider, and stumbling, he began to grope toward
it. The black wall of the night lay beyond.

Slowly the color faded from the cheeks of the woman now left alone yet
again. She sank down, crumpling, white, her face marble clear, her eyes
staring straight ahead at what picture none may ask. Then, as the white
column of her throat fluttered again, she beat one hand slightly
against the other, ere she crushed them both together in her lap, ere
she flung them wide above her.

"God! God!" cried Aurora Lane. "If it wasn't right, why did He say,
'Suffer little children'? It was in the Book ... little ... little
children ... the Kingdom of Heaven!"

It was more than an hour before she, too, rose and, stepping toward the
door, looked out again into the night. A red light showed here or there.
Homes--the homes of our town.

By Emerson Hough

The Broken Gate
The Man Next Door
The Magnificent Adventure
Let Us Go Afield
Out of Doors
The Story of the Cowboy
The Girl at the Halfway House

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