Broussard handed him a box of cigars and Lawrence absently took one.  It was a very expensive cigar, as Broussard’s things were all expensive.  Lawrence, after rolling it in his fingers for a moment, laid it down.

“It’s a shame not to be able to smoke such a brand as that,” he said, “but the truth is, I can’t stand tobacco to-night.  It makes me nervous instead of soothing me.”

Broussard, lighting a cigar for himself, looked closely at Lawrence, whose face was pallid and his eye sombre and uneasy.

“What’s the trouble?  More bills at the post trader’s?” asked Broussard.

“Worse,” replied Lawrence, becoming more agitated as he spoke.  “My wife—­the best wife that ever lived—­has been traced here by her people.  Of course, my name isn’t Lawrence, and there was some trouble in finding her.  They want her to leave me, and offer to provide for her and the boy.  The work is killing her—­you see how pale and thin she is—­and the boy hasn’t the chance he ought to have.  They are worth more than a broken and beaten man like I am.  But ever since I married her I’ve led a fairly decent life—­she is the one creature who can keep me a little on this side of the jail.  If she leaves me, I’m lost.  What shall I do?”

Lawrence rose to his feet, and stood, trembling like a leaf.  Broussard rose, too.  By some strange, psychic foreknowledge, Broussard knew that some disclosure, poignant and even vital to himself, was then to be made by Lawrence.  It came in Lawrence’s next words, dragged out of him, as it were, by a force like that which drags the soul from the body.

“I ask you this,” cried Lawrence, “in the name of our mother, for you and I, Victor Broussard, are brothers of the half blood.”

By that time, Lawrence was weeping convulsively.  Broussard’s lighted cigar dropped to the floor, and lay there smoldering.

“But—­but—­” stammered Broussard, “my half-brother, my mother’s son by her first marriage, died when I was a boy.  My mother wore mourning for him.”

“Yes,” answered Lawrence, recovering himself a little, “she thought I was dead when I was in double irons for mutiny on a merchant ship.  It was one of God’s mercies that she thought me dead when I was living a life that would have been worse than death to her.  Look you, I have disobeyed and defied and disgraced the God that made me, but I have never ceased to believe in Him.  And, blackguard that I was and am, I had the best mother, and I have the best wife——­”

There was a tense silence for a minute.  Through all the bewildering and overwhelming thoughts that were crashing through Broussard’s brain, but one thing was clear and unshakable, the deathless loyalty that a son owes to his mother.

“Of course,” said Broussard, in a cool and resolute voice, “I’ll stand by my mother’s son, for my mother’s sake.  I was always puzzled at your knowledge of my parents, but I want some actual proof of what you say.  Not for myself, you understand, but for others.”