“She was a bad mother to me.  She is a memory of terror.  I don’t pretend to be grieved,” said Paul; “any more than I pretend to be overcome by filial emotion at the present moment.  But, if you are my father, I should be glad to know—­in fact, I think I’m entitled to know—­why you’ve taken thirty years to reveal yourself, and why”—­a sudden fury swept him—­“why you’ve come now to play hell with my life.”

“It is the will of God,” said Silas Finn, in deep dejection.

Paul snapped three or four fingers.  “Bah!” he cried.  “Talk sense.  Talk facts.  Leave God out of the question for a while.  It’s blasphemy to connect Him with a sordid business like this.  Tell me about myself—­my parentage—­let me know where I am.”

“You’re with three people as loves yer, sonny,” said Barney Bill.  “What passes in this room will never be known to another soul on earth.”

“That I swear,” said Silas Finn.

“You can publish it broadcast in every newspaper in England,” said Paul.  “I’m making no bargains.  Good God!  I’m asking for nothing but the truth.  What use I make of it is my affair.  You can do—­the three of you—­what you like.  Let the world know.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s I that matter—­my life and my conscience and my soul that matter.”

“Don’t be too hard upon me,” Silas besought him very humbly.

“Tell me about myself,” said Paul.

Silas Finn wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and covered his eyes with his hand.  “That can only mean telling you about myself,” he said.  “It’s raking up a past which I had hoped, with God’s help, to bury.  But I have sinned to-night, and it is my punishment to tell you.  And you have a right to know.  My father was a porter in Covent Garden Market.  My mother—­I’ve already mentioned—­”

“Yes—­the Sicilian and the barrel organ—­I remember,” said Paul, with a shiver.

“I had a hard boyhood.  But I rose a little above my class.  I educated myself more or less.  At last I became assistant in a fishmonger’s shop.  Our friend Simmons here and I were boys together.  We fell in love with the same girl.  I married her.  Not long afterward she gave way to drink.  I found that in all kinds of ways I had mistaken her character.  I can’t describe your own mother to you.  She had a violent temper.  So had I. My life was a hell upon earth.  One day she goaded me beyond my endurance and I struck at her with a knife.  I meant at the bloodred instant to kill her.  But I didn’t.  I nearly killed her.  I went to prison for three years.  When I came out she had vanished, taking you with her.  In prison I found the Grace of God and I vowed it should be my guide through life.  As soon as I was free from police supervision I changed my name—­I believe it’s a good old Devonshire name; my father came from there—­the prison taint hung about it.  Then, when I found I could extend a miserable little business I had got together, I changed it again to suit my trade.  That’s about all.”