“Myself, ’t was for Lois’s sake I thowt on it.  To speak plain,—­yoh’ll mind that Stokes affair, th’ note Yare brought?  Yes?  Ther’s none knows o’ that but yoh an’ me.  He’s safe, Yare is, only fur yoh an’ me.  Yoh speak the wured an’ back he goes to the lock-up.  Fur life.  D’ yoh see?”

“I see.”

“He’s tryin’ to do right, Yare is.”

The old man went on, trying not to be eager, and watching Holmes’s face.

“He’s tryin’.  Sendin’ him back—­yoh know how that ’ll end.  Seems like as we’d his soul in our hands.  S’pose,—­what d’ yoh think, if we give him a chance?  It’s yoh he fears.  I see him a-watchin’ yoh; what d’ yoh think, if we give him a chance?” catching Holmes’s sleeve.  “He’s old, an’ he’s tryin’.  Heh?”

Holmes smiled.

“We didn’t make the law he broke.  Justice before mercy.  Haven’t I heard you talk to Sam in that way, long ago?”

The old man loosened his hold of Holmes’s arm, looked up and down the street, uncertain, disappointed.

“The law.  Yes.  That’s right!  Yoh’re a just man, Stephen Holmes.”

“And yet?”——­

“Yes.  I dun’no’.  Law’s right, but Yare’s had a bad chance, an’ he’s tryin’.  An’ we’re sendin’ him to hell.  Somethin’s wrong.  But I think yoh’re a just man,” looking keenly in Holmes’s face.

“A hard one, people say,” said Holmes, after a pause, as they walked on.

He had spoken half to himself, and received no answer.  Some blacker shadow troubled him than old Yare’s fate.

“My mother was a hard woman,—­you knew her?” he said, abruptly.

“She was just, like yoh.  She was one o’ th’ elect, she said.  Mercy’s fur them,—­an’ outside, justice.  It’s a narrer showin’, I’m thinkin’.”

“My father was outside,” said Holmes, some old bitterness rising up in his tone, his gray eye lighting with some unrevenged wrong.

Polston did not speak for a moment.

“Dunnot bear malice agin her.  They’re dead, now.  It wasn’t left fur her to judge him out yonder.  Yoh’ve yer father’s eyes, Stephen, ’times.  Hungry, pitiful, like women’s.  His got desper’t’ ‘t th’ last.  Drunk hard,—­died of’t, yoh know.  But she killed him,—­th’ sin was writ down fur her.  Never was a boy I loved like him, when we was boys.”

There was a short silence.

“Yoh’re like yer mother,” said Polston, striving for a lighter tone.  “Here,”—­motioning to the heavy iron jaws.  “She never—­let go.  Somehow, too, she’d the law on her side in outward showin’, an’ th’ right.  But I hated religion, knowin’ her.  Well, ther’s a day of makin’ things clear, comin’.”

They had reached the corner now, and Polston turned down the lane.

“Yoh’ll think o’ Yare’s case?” he said.

“Yes.  But how can I help it,” Holmes said, lightly, “if I am like my mother here?”—­putting his hand to his mouth.

“God help us, how can yoh?  It’s harrd to think father and mother leave their souls fightin’ in their childern, cos th’ love was wantin’ to make them one here.”