When he faced about, lightly whistling, he
saw the back of a man. The man was closing and locking his door from
him. His whistle faded out and he felt uneasy. The man turned around, a
wreck of shabby old clothes, sodden with rain and all a-drip, and showed
a black face under an old slouch hat. Tom was frightened. He tried to
order the man out, but the words refused to come, and the other man got
the start. He said, in a low voice:

"Keep still--I's yo' mother!"

Tom sunk in a heap on a chair, and gasped out:

"It was mean of me, and base--I know it; but I meant it for the best, I
did indeed--I can swear it."

Roxana stood awhile looking mutely down on him while he writhed in shame
and went on incoherently babbling self-accusations mixed with pitiful
attempts at explanation and palliation of his crime; then she seated
herself and took off her hat, and her unkept masses of long brown hair
tumbled down about her shoulders.

"It warn't no fault o' yo'n dat dat ain't gray," she said sadly, noticing
the hair.

"I know it, I know it! I'm a scoundrel. But I swear I meant it for the
best. It was a mistake, of course, but I thought it was for the best, I
truly did."

Roxana began to cry softly, and presently words began to find their way
out between her sobs. They were uttered lamentingly, rather than
angrily.

"Sell a pusson down de river--DOWN DE RIVER!--for de bes'! I wouldn't
treat a dog so! I is all broke down en wore out now, en so I reckon
it ain't in me to storm aroun' no mo', like I used to when I 'uz trompled
on en 'bused. I don't know--but maybe it's so. Leastways, I's suffered
so much dat mournin' seem to come mo' handy to me now den stormin'."

These words should have touched Tom Driscoll, but if they did, that
effect was obliterated by a stronger one--one which removed the heavy
weight of fear which lay upon him, and gave his crushed spirit a most
grateful rebound, and filled all his small soul with a deep sense of
relief. But he kept prudently still, and ventured no comment. There was
a voiceless interval of some duration now, in which no sounds were heard
but the beating of the rain upon the panes, the sighing and complaining
of the winds, and now and then a muffled sob from Roxana. The sobs became
more and more infrequent, and at last ceased. Then the refugee began to
talk again.

"Shet down dat light a little. More. More yit. A pusson dat is hunted
don't like de light. Dah--dat'll d