at. He thought if I went off and nibbled--what is it--husks?
that I'd come around. He didn't understand that it was the _motive
power_ that was lacking in me.

"Good God, Drew! I've been hungry and cold and homesick until I've
thought death was the next step; but I couldn't _stick_ to anything long
enough to make good. Such men as my father never know what
hell-suffering men like me go through--before they fall, and fall, and
fall!

"I wrote--lies, home. I wanted to keep mother singing and laughing. I
was always doing fine, you know. Coming home in a year or so. I was in
Chicago, then New York; but I was getting lower all the time. I put up
in those haunted houses--the lodging dives, but I kept those letters
going to her, always cheerful.

"Then I made another struggle. I cut for the woods. I got to
Hillcrest--when word came--that she had--died!" A dumb suffering stopped
the words. Drew laid his hot hand over Filmer's, which were clenched,
until the finger-tips were white.

"It was the hope--of making myself fit to go home and hear her sing and
laugh that had brought me to Hillcrest. Well, I wrote the old man--that
I was going further north. You see, he blamed me. Said the longing for
me, the disappointment and the rest, had weakened her heart. I couldn't
bear the thought of ever going back--then; so I tramped over the hill
and--St. Ange adopted me. It's been a tame plot since then, but it's
never been as bad as it was before. I dropped into their speech and
ways, and things sank to a dead level. I got word from Hillcrest the
other day." Filmer looked blankly into the red embers. "The governor has
left--it all to me with this saving clause: if I have any honour I am
not to take the money until I can use it as my parents would desire. You
see, the old man had what I never suspected--a soft place in his heart
for me, and a glimmer of hope. It might not have made any
difference--but I wish to God I had known it before."

Drew could not stand the misery of the convulsed face. He turned his
eyes away.

"Drew!" Filmer had risen suddenly and now confronted his companion with
deep, flashing eyes. "Drew, I'm not going to take the fortune
unless--I'm fit to handle it. I've been a tramp long enough to know that
I can keep on being a tramp, but I'm going to make one more almighty try
before I succumb. I may be all wrong, but lately I've thought the--the
motive power has--come to me." A strange, uplifting dignity seemed to
f