Jacob Newell, with a strange look, as though he were gazing at some dimly defined object afar off, slowly spoke,—­

“I have thought sometimes that I should like to know where he lies, if he is dead,—­or how he lives, if he be living.  Shall we meet him?  Shall we meet him?  Five goodly spirits await us in heaven; will he be there, also?  Oh, no! he was a bad, bad, bad son, and he broke his father’s heart!”

“He was a bad son, Jacob, giddy and light-headed, but not wholly bad.  Oh, he was so strong, so handsome, so bright and brave!  If he is living, I pray God that he may come back to see us for a little, before we follow our other lost ones!”

“If he should come back,” said Jacob, turning very white, but speaking clearly and distinctly, “I would drive him from my door, and tell him to be gone forever!  A wine-bibber, dissolute, passionate, headstrong, having no reverence for God or man, no love for his mother, no sense of duty towards his father; I have disowned him, once and forever, and utterly cast him out!  Let him beware and not come back to tempt me to curse him!”

Still from the distance, overpowering and drowning the headlong rush of passion, came the soft booming of the evening-bell.

“I hear the church-bell, Jacob:  we have not long to hear it.  Let us not die cursing our son in our hearts.  God gave him to us; and if Satan led him astray, we know not how strong the temptation may have been, nor how he may have fought against it.”

Jacob Newell had nought to say in answer to this, but, from the passion in his heart, and from that egotism that many good men have whose religious education has taught them to make their personal godliness a matter to vaunt over, he spoke, foolishly and little to the point,—­

“Ruth, did Satan ever lead me astray?”

“God knows!” she replied.

There came a rap at the door.

The melody of the church-bell was fast dying away.  The last cadences of sound, the last quiver in the air, when the ringer had ceased to ring and the hammer struck the bell no more, lingered still, as a timid and uncertain tapping fell upon the door.

“Come in!” said Jacob Newell.

The door was slowly opened.

Then there stood within it a tall, muscular man, a stranger in those parts, with a ruddy face, and a full, brown beard.  He stood grasping the door with all his might, and leaning against it as for support.  Meanwhile his gaze wandered about the room with a strange anxiety, as though it sought in vain for what should assuredly have been found there.

“Good evening, Sir,” said Jacob Newell.

The stranger made no reply, but still stood clinging to the door, with a strange and horrible expression of mingled wonder and awe in his face.

“’Tis a lunatic!” whispered Ruth to her husband.

“Sir,” said Jacob, “what do you want here to-night?”