road went down from thence
to the gate. It had been his constant practice to walk up and down
from his own hall door to his own gate on the high road, perhaps
comforting himself too warmly with the reflection that the ground
on which he walked was all his own. He had no such comfort now, as
he made his way down the accustomed path and leaned upon the gate,
thinking over what he had heard.

A forger! At some such hour as this, with patient premeditated care,
she had gone to work and committed one of the vilest crimes known
to man. And this was his mother! And he, he, Lucius Mason, had been
living for years on the fruit of this villainy;--had been so living
till this terrible day of retribution had come upon him! I fear that
at that moment he thought more of his own misery than he did of hers,
and hardly considered, as he surely should have done, that mother's
love which had led to all this guilt. And for a moment he resolved
that he would not go back to the house. His head, he said to himself,
should never again rest under a roof which belonged of right
to Joseph Mason. He had injured Joseph Mason;--had injured him
innocently, indeed, as far as he himself was concerned; but he had
injured him greatly, and therefore now hated him all the more. "He
shall have it instantly," he said, and walked forth into the high
road as though he would not allow his feet to rest again on his
brother's property.

But he was forced to remember that this could not be so. His mother's
trial was not yet over, and even in the midst of his own personal
trouble he remembered that the verdict to her was still a matter of
terrible import. He would not let it be known that he had abandoned
the property, at any rate till that verdict had been given. And then
as he moved back to the house he tried to think in what way it would
become him to behave to his mother. "She can never be my mother
again," he said to himself. They were terrible words;--but then was
not his position very terrible?

And when at last he had bolted the front door, going through the
accustomed task mechanically, and had gone up stairs to his own room,
he had failed to make up his mind on this subject. Perhaps it would
be better that he should not see her. What could he say to her? What
word of comfort could he speak? It was not only that she had beggared
him! Nay; it was not that at all! But she had doomed him to a life of
disgrace which no effort of his own could wipe away. An