tain her, and no more was used. He
was mad, clearly, but not ferocious. "I'm not going to hurt ye, mother,"
said he. "But you leave your eyes on me a minute, and see if I'm a
liar." He remained with his own fixed on hers, as one who waits
impatiently for what he knows must come.

But no recognition followed. In vain did the old lady attempt--and
perfectly honestly--to detect some reminder of some face seen and
hitherto forgotten, in the hard cold eyes and thick-set jaw, the
mouth-disfiguring twist which flawed features, which, handsome enough in
themselves, would have otherwise gone near to compensate a repellent
countenance. The effort was the more hopeless from the fact that it was
a face that, once seen, might have been hard to forget. After complying
to the full with his suggestion of a thorough examination, she was
forced to acknowledge failure. "Indeed and indeed, sir," she said, "my
memory is all at fault. If ever I saw ye in my life, 'tis so long ago
I've forgotten it."

"Ah--you may say long ago!" The madman--for to her he was one; some
lunatic at large--seemed to choke a moment over what he had to say, and
then it came. "Twenty years and more--ay!--twenty years, and five
over--and most of the time in Hell! Ah--run away, if you like--run away
from your own son!" He released her arm; but though the terror had come
back twofold, she would not run; for the most terrible maniac is pitiful
as well as terrible, and her pity for him put her thoughts on calming
and conciliating him. He went on, his speech breaking through something
that choked it back and made it half a cry in the end. "Fourteen years
of quod--fourteen years of prison-food--fourteen years of such a life
that * * * prayers, Sundays, and the * * * parson that read 'em was as
good as a holiday! Why--I tell you! It was so bad the lifers would try
it on again and again, to kill themselves, and were only kept off of
doing it by the cat, if they missed their tip." This was all the jargon
of delirium to the terror-stricken old woman; it may be clear enough to
the ordinary reader, with what followed. "I tell you I saw the man that
got away over the cliff, and shattered every bone in his body. I saw him
carried out o' hospital and tied up and flogged, for a caution, till the
blood run down and the doctor gave the word stop." He went on in a
voluble and disjointed way to tell how this man was "still there! There
where your son, mother, spent fourteen out of thes