aking,
when I go over to see her at Ballardsville. She got wind of my
misfortune, somehow, and when I made a clean breast of it to her, she
said she could never feel the same to me till I had made it all right
with the Kentons. And when a man's own mother is down on him, judge!"

Bittridge left Kenton to imagine the desperate case, and in spite of his
disbelief in the man and all he said, Kenton could not keep his hardness
of heart towards him. "I don't know what you're after, young man," he
began. "But if you expect me to receive you under my roof again--"

"Oh, I don't, judge, I don't!" Bittridge interposed. "All I want is to
be able to tell my mother--I don't care for anybody else--that I saw
you, and you allowed me to say that I was truly sorry for the pain--if
it was pain; or annoyance, anyway--that I had caused you, and to go back
to her with the hope of atoning for it sometime or somehow. That's all."

"Look here!" cried Renton. "What have you written to my daughter for?"

"Wasn't that natural? I prized her esteem more than I do yours even; but
did I ask her anything more than I've asked you? I didn't expect her to
answer me; all I wanted was to have her believe that I wasn't as black
as I was painted--not inside, anyway. You know well enough--anybody
knows--that I would rather have her think well of me than any one else
in this world, except my mother. I haven't got the gift of showing out
what's good in me, if there is any good, but I believe Miss Ellen would
want to think well of me if I gave her a chance. If ever there was an
angel on earth, she's one. I don't deny that I was hopeful of mercy from
her, because she can't think evil, but I can lay my hand on my heart and
say that I wasn't selfish in my hopes. It seemed to me that it was
her due to understand that a man whom she had allowed to be her friend
wasn't altogether unworthy. That's as near as I can come to putting into
words the motive I had in writing to her. I can't even begin to put
into words the feeling I have towards her. It's as if she was something
sacred."

This was the feeling Renton himself had towards his daughter, and for
the first time he found himself on common ground with the scapegrace
who professed it, and whose light, mocking face so little enforced his
profession. If Bittridge could have spoken in the dark, his words might
have carried a conviction of his sincerity, but there, in plain day,
confronting the father of Ellen, who h