for his face, Zack's
memory began, correctly though confusedly, to retrace the circumstances
attending his return home, and his disastrous journey up stairs to bed.
With these recollections were mingled others of the light which had
penetrated into his room, after his own candle was out; of the voice
which had denounced him as a "Degraded beast;" and of the banging of the
door which had followed. There could be no doubt that it was his father
who had entered the room and apostrophized him in the briefly emphatic
terms which he was now calling to mind. Never had Mr. Thorpe, on any
former occasion, been known to call names, or bang doors. It was quite
clear that he had discovered everything, and was exasperated with his
son as he had never been exasperated with any other human being before
in his life.

Just as Zack arrived at this conclusion, he heard the rustling of his
mother's dress on the stairs, and Mrs. Thorpe, with her handkerchief
to her eyes, presented herself woefully at his bedside. Profoundly and
penitently wretched, he tried to gain his mother's forgiveness before he
encountered his father's wrath. To do him justice, he was so thoroughly
ashamed to meet her eye, that he turned his face to the wall, and in
that position appealed to his mother's compassion in the most moving
terms, and with the most vehement protestations which he had ever
addressed to her.

The only effect he produced on Mrs. Thorpe was to make her walk up and
down the room in violent agitation, sobbing bitterly. Now and then a few
words burst lamentably and incoherently from her lips. They were just
articulate enough for him to gather from them that his father had
discovered everything, had suffered in consequence from an attack of
palpitation of the heart, and had felt himself, on rising that morning,
so unequal, both in mind and body, to deal unaided with the enormity of
his son's offense, that he had just gone out to request the co-operation
of the Reverend Aaron Yollop. On discovering this, Zack's penitence
changed instantly into a curious mixture of indignation and alarm. He
turned round quickly towards his mother. But, before he could open his
lips, she informed him, speaking with an unexampled severity of tone,
that he was on no account to think of going to the office as usual, but
was to wait at home until his father's return--and then hurried from the
room. The fact was, that Mrs. Thorpe distrusted her own inflexibility,
if she st