gh gesture of impatience; his well-earned rest was disturbed too
soon. He failed to recognize the man who was standing bareheaded on the
step.

"Father Honore, I've come home--don't you know me, Champney?"

There was no word in response, but his hands were grasped hard--he was
drawn into the room--the door was shut on the chill wind of that March
night. Then the two men stood silent, gazing into each other's eyes,
while the firelight leaped and showed to each the other's face--the
priest's working with a powerful emotion he was struggling to control;
Champney Googe's apparently calm, but in reality tense with anxiety. He
spoke first:

"I want to know about my mother--is she well?"

Father Honore found his voice, an uncertain one but emphatic; it left no
room for further anxiety in the questioner's mind.

"Yes, well, thank God, and looking forward to this--but it's so soon! I
don't understand--when did you come?"

He kept one hand on Champney's as if fearing to lose him, with the other
he pulled forward a chair from the wall and placed it near his own; he
sat down and drew Champney into the other beside him.

"I came up on the afternoon train; I got out yesterday."

"It's so unexpected. The chaplain wrote me last month that there was a
prospect of this within the next six months, but I had no idea it would
be so soon--neither, I am sure, had he."

"Nor I--I don't know that I feel sure of it yet. Has my mother any idea
of this?"

"I wasn't at liberty to tell her--the communication was confidential.
Still she knows that it is customary to shorten the--" he caught up his
words.

"--Term for exemplary conduct?" Champney finished for him.

"Yes. I can't realize this, Champney; it's six years and four months--"

"Years--months! You might say six eternities. Do you know, I can't get
used to it--the freedom, I mean. At times during these last twenty-four
hours, I have actually felt lost without the work, the routine--the
solitude." He sighed heavily and spoke further, but as if to himself:

"Last Thanksgiving Day we were all together--eight hundred of us in the
assembly room for the exercises. Two men get pardoned out on that day,
and the two who were set free were in for manslaughter--one for twenty
years, the other for life. They had been in eighteen years. I watched
their faces when their numbers were called; they stepped forward to the
platform and were told of their pardon. There wasn't a sign of
comprehens