him.  Pure men this was for.  Stephen looked like an old man now, in spite of Ben’s party-colored rigging:  stooped and lean, his step slouched:  his head almost bald under the old fur cap.  Something in the sharpened face, too, looked as if more than eyesight had been palsied in these years of utter solitude:  the brain was dulled with sluggishly gnawing over and over the few animal ideas they leave for prisoners’ souls,—­or, as probably, thoroughly imbruted by them.  Soule thought the latter.

When the convict had finished his dull walk, he sat down on the wooden staircase that led to his brother’s rooms for half an hour, slowly rubbing his legs, conscious of nothing but some flesh-pain, apparently,—­and when he did enter the chamber, bowed as indifferently to Soule and his wife as though they had parted carelessly yesterday.  His brother glanced at the woman:  one look would certainly be enough for her.  Poor Stephen’s power?  If it ever had been, its essence was long since exhaled:  there was nothing in his whole nature now but the stalest dregs, surely?  Perhaps she thought differently:  she looked at the man keenly, and then gave a quick, warning glance to her husband, as she sat down to her sewing.  Soule did not heed it as he usually did:  he was choked and sick to see what a wreck his brother really was.  God help us! to think of the time when Stephen and he were boys together, and this was the end of it!

“Come to the fire, old fellow!” he said, huskily.  “You’re blue with cold.  We used to have snows like this at home, eh?”

The man passed the lady with the quaint, shy bow that used to be habitual with him towards women, (he still used it to the jailer’s wife,) and held his hands over the blaze.  His brother followed him:  his wife had never seen him so nervous or excited:  he stood close to the convict, smoothing his coat on the shoulder, taking off his cap.

“Why, why! this cloth’s too thin, even for summer; I—­Oh, Stephen, these are hard times,—­hard!  But I mean to do something for you, God knows.  Sit down, sit down, you’re tired, boy,” turning off, going to the window, his hands behind him,—­coming back again.  “We’re going to help you, Judith and I.”

Soule did not see the look which the convict shot at the woman, when he spoke these words; but she did,—­and knew, that, however her husband might contrive to deceive himself, he never would his brother.  If Stephen Yarrow’s soul went down to any deeper depth to-night, it would be conscious in its going.  What manner of man was he?  What was his wife, or long-ago home, or his old God, now, to him?  It mattered to them:  for, if he were not a tool, they were ruined.  She stitched quietly at her soft floss and flannel.  Soule was sincere; let him explain what his wish was, himself; it would be wiser for her to be silent; this man, she remembered, had eyes that never understood a lie.

Yarrow did not sit down; his brother stood close, leaning his unsteady hand upon his arm.