h truth as, in this dark world, she still can grasp. "I
do not want my daughters to marry"--this is, to her, the conclusion of
the whole matter. The bitterness of her own marriage has taught her
this lesson, which she expounds to the lover with all the passion of
wounded pride and the dear-bought lore of life as she has learned it.
But of course, as she admits, she may be wrong. Let the lover consult
her husband at the jail. He--the convict--is a well-meaning man,
after all. He fell; but he is not at heart a criminal. Let him say
whether he wants his daughter to take up the burden of this new
tragedy. So the mother concludes her parable.

The lover, baffled, but still hopeful, next turns to his own father
for consent and encouragement. But now he has to listen to the
teachings of a loftier yet to him profoundly discouraging prudence.
{246} Oliver's father is a truly high-minded man of the world, with a
genuinely religious feeling in the background of his mind, and is
intensely devoted to his son. But from this proposed match he recoils
with a natural horror. The world is full of good girls. Why not choose
one who brings no such sorrow with her? Peter Lannithorne was in his
crime no worse, indeed, than many other men who are not in jail. He
even meant on the whole well, and blundered, until at last from
blunder he drifted into crime. He then took his penalty like a man,
and owned that it was just. But, after all, he was found out. Such a
taint lasts. It cannot be removed by repentance. The proposed marriage
can only lead to misery. Peter Lannithorne himself, who, after all,
"knows what's what," would be the first to admit this fact, if one
asked his advice. If the son must persist in making light of a loving
father's wisdom--well, let him then consult Peter Lannithorne himself.
Ask the convict in his prison what a man needs and expects in the
family of the woman whom he is to marry. This is the father's firm but
kindly ultimatum.

Terrified by the gravity of repeated warnings, and dispirited by
having to leave his dearest problem to the decision of the convict
himself, Oliver determines to face the inevitable. He arranges for the
interview at the jail, and is left by the warden alone with the
prisoner in the prison library. Suddenly, as he faces his man, the
youth finds himself {247} in the presence of one who has somehow been
transformed as if by a supernatural power. As for the convict's
person--

His features we