He paused.  Even in this frothy-brained fellow, his religion or his doubt lay deeper than all.  His face grew dark.

“I tell you, if there is one thing I loathe, it is the God and His day that were taught to me when I was a child:  joyless, hard, cruel.  Fire—­humph!—­and brimstone for all but a few hundred.  I remember.  Well, I don’t know yet if there is any better,” with a vague look.  “A man shifts for himself in the next chance as well as now, I suppose.  Did you believe what you preached, Stephen?” with an abrupt change.  “God! how you used to writhe under it at first!”

“They forced me into it,” said Yarrow.  “I was only a boy.  You remember that I was only a boy,—­just out of the shop.  The more uneducated a man was in our church-pulpit then, the better. I knew nothing, John,” appealingly.  “When I preached about foreordination and hell-fire, it was in coarse slang:  I knew that.  I used to think there might be a different God and books and another life farther out in the world, if I could only get at it.  I never was strong, and they had forced me into it; and when you came to me to help you with your plan, I wanted to get out, and”—­

“You did help me,”—­chafing the limp fingers.  “That was my first start, that Pesson note.  I owe that to you, Stephen.”

“I have paid for it,” looking him steadily in the eye, some unexpected manliness rising up, making his tone bitter and marrowy.  “I paid for it.  But no matter for that.  But now you come again.  I have had time to think over these things in yonder, John.”

Soule dropped his hand, drew back, and was silent a moment.

“Let it be so.  But did you think what you would do, if you refused your aid to me?  Have you found work? or a God to preach?”

Something in these last words took Yarrow’s sudden strength away.  He did not answer for a moment.

“Work?” feebly.  “No,—­I haven’t heard of any work.  As for a God”—­

“Well, then, what are your purposes?” coldly.

Another silence.

“I don’t know.  I never was worth much,” he gasped out at last, stooping, and pulling at his shoestrings.

“And now”—­said Soule.

“There’s no need for you to say that!” with a sharp cry.  “I don’t forget that I have slipped,—­that it’s too late,—­I don’t forget.”

His hands jerked at his coat-fronts in a wild, dazed way.

“Stephen!”

The woman rose, and let in the air.

“I thank you.  I’m not sick.”

Soule turned away.  He could not meet the look on the pinched convict-face,—­the soul of the man crying out for God or his brother, something to help.  There was a silence for a few moments.

“You will come with me, Stephen,” quietly:  then, after a pause, “It is for life.  There is but little time left to decide.”