--the bearing
of another's sin--his father's sin. His whole soul recoiled from it. Any
other cross but this he could have borne after Christ with willing feet
and rejoicing heart. But to know that his father was a criminal; and to
bear the shame of it openly!

Yet he could not stand there longer, fighting his battle, in the
presence of these curious eyes so keenly fastened upon him. The clock
over the door showed upon its dial only a minute or two gone; but to
Felix the time consumed in his brief foretaste of the cross seemed
years. He gathered together so much of his self-possession as could be
summoned at a moment's notice, and looked straight into the faces of his
audience.

"Friends," he said, "if this is true, it is as new to me as it is to
you. My father died when I was a boy of ten; and no one had a heart hard
enough to tell me then my father was a rogue. But if I find it is true,
I'll not rest day nor night till this man has his money again. What is
his name?"

"Nixey," called out three or four voices; "John Nixey."

Again Felix's heart sank, for he knew Simon Nixey, whose farm lay
nearest to Phebe's little homestead; and there was a familiar ring in
the name.

"Ay, ay!" stammered Nixey; "but old Clifford o' the Bank paid me the
money back all right; only I'd sworn a dreadful oath I'd never lay by
another farthin', and it soon came to an end. It were me as were lost as
well as the money."

"Then what do you come bothering here for," asked one of the men, "if
you've had your money back all right? Get out with you."

For a minute or two there was a scuffle, and then the drunkard was
hustled outside and the door shut behind him. For another half hour
Felix mechanically conducted the business of the club, as if he had been
in a dream; and then, bidding the members of the little committee good
night, he paced swiftly away from his district in the direction of his
home.

CHAPTER VI.

OTHER PEOPLE'S SINS.

"But why go home?" Felix stopped as he asked himself this question. He
could not face his mother with any inquiry about the mystery that
surrounded his father's memory, that mystery which was slowly
dissipating like the mists which vanish imperceptibly from a landscape.
He was beginning to read his mother's life in a more intelligible light,
and all along the clearer line new meanings were springing into sight.
The solitude and sadness, the bitterness of spirit, which had separated
her from the