chest rose as if the weight of that load lay on it still, and his breath
expired with a hoarse "haugh." "I got out of the way because it was _my_
load. I didn't want no help from them." He paused and sat picking at his
hands. "It's a dreadful ugly story. I'd most as soon live it over again as
have to tell it in cold blood. I feel sometimes it _can't be!_"

"You need not go back beyond that night. I know how my mother was left,
and what sort of a man you were forced to leave her with. Was it--the
keeper?"

"That's what it was. That was the hard knot in my thread. Nothing wouldn't
go past that. Some, when they git things in a tangle, they just reach for
the shears an' cut the thread. I wa'n't brought up that way. I was taught
to leave the shears alone. So I went on stringin' one year after another.
But they wouldn't join on to them that went before. There was the knot."

"It was between you and him--and the law?" said Paul.

"You've got it! I was there alone with it,--witness an' judge an' jury; I
worked up my own case. Manslaughter with extenuatin' circumstances, I made
it--though he was more beast than man. I give myself the outside
penalty,--imprisonment for life. And I been working out my sentence ever
since. The Western country wa'n't home to me then--more like a big prison.
It's been my prison these twenty-odd years, while your mother was enjoying
what belonged to her, and making a splendid job of your education. If I
had let things alone I might have finished my time out: but I didn't, and
now the rest of it's commuted--for the life of my son!"

"Don't put it that way! I am no lamb of sacrifice. Why, how can we let
things alone in this world! Should I have stood off from this secret and