ran away, for fear
they'd put him in jail. The last time I seen him he come to give ole
Mother Cummins money for keepin' us. She was drunk that night, and I
sneaked out o' bed an' listened, an' he didn't give her 'nough, an' she
yelled at him, an' she says, 'Joseph Symonds, you're a----'
Wha--what's the matter?"

John McIntyre had leaned forward in his chair and was glaring at the
boy. "That name!" he cried. "What was your father's name?"

"Symonds--Joseph Symonds," repeated the child, staring. "That's our
name, too, an' Joey was called after him."

"Was Fair Hill the place you were born in?"

"Yes. How did you know? It was right beside the ocean----" He
paused. The look in John McIntyre's face alarmed him. "Ye--ye ain't
goin' to get sick again, are ye?"

He arose and came nearer, and the man drew back, with a gesture of
loathing. "Your--father--was Joseph Symonds!" he repeated, dazed.

Tim had a fashion, when he was very much interested in anything his
friend was saying, of seizing a button of the man's coat and twisting
it. He took hold of it now, and turned it around and around, gazing at
him wonderingly.

"Yes; did ye know him?" he asked, innocently eager.

John McIntyre's clenched hands relaxed. His first impulse had been to
hurl far from him the offspring of the scoundrel who had been his ruin.
But one look into the boy's inquiring eyes, gazing at him in perfect
faith, rendered him powerless. He let his hand fall heavily upon Tim's
shoulder, and holding him back, stared into his wondering face. Line
by line he traced resemblances, hitherto unnoticed, to the man he had
hated. There was the same pointed chin, the same cunning droop of the
eyes. And yet, oh, miracle of love! those very hated features now
formed the one thing in the world to which his heart clung. He was
overcome by a feeling of utter impotence. Hitherto, his strength had
lain in his relentless hatred; and now, what had become of it? It was
gone--transformed into another feeling infinitely more potent.
Something of the all-conquering force of love--the impossibility of
escape from it--was borne in upon John McIntyre's soul. For an instant
the veil of mystery that shrouded human suffering seemed to grow
transparent, and behind it shone Divine Love in the agony of Calvary.
Inevitable, all-pervading, like the voice of the Apocalypse thundering
from heaven, it spoke: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the
ending."

T