“It was the one big happiness in my life in Egypt, Mr. Wagg, to feel that at last my mother was having the little rest and comfort that she deserved.  I used to look ahead to the time when I could give her what I was able to give her while I was at work.  I had a dreadful struggle with her, getting her to leave her work.  The only way I ever did get around her was to complain that she was spoiling my prettiest dream by staying in the store.  And now it’s all to do over again.  I haven’t even the realization of the dream to help me here.”

“It’s tough—­realizing what you could do if you had the chance, and not being able to do it,” averred Mr. Wagg.  He lighted his pipe and slid off his stool.  “A woman earning her living these days has to do a terrible lot of hard work in seven years.”

And having, after his usual custom, lighted a fire under the kettle, Mr. Wagg went to a distance and allowed the contents to boil.

The contents did boil that day, when Vaniman had an opportunity to do some concentrated thinking.

That morning he had received his weekly letter from Vona.  She confessed to him that for some weeks she had refrained from telling him that Tasper Britt was a member of the household.  She explained under what circumstances Britt was there and what her attitude was and would continue to be.  She had not written anything about the matter, she said, on account of her anxiety to keep petty troubles and worries away from one who was suffering from such cruel injustice.  But now that her father had gone away for an indefinite stay, leaving Britt as general guardian, she wrote to Vaniman to anticipate any rumors which might reach the young man from another quarter.

She did not state that this intrusion by Britt into her home was perpetual persecution where she was concerned; Vaniman felt that she did not need to say so.  His imagination pictured the situation.  He had become morbid.  He admitted it, but he could not help himself.  He had done his best to keep his judgments sane and his hopes untarnished.  But he was judging Britt by what Britt had already done, and he was in a mood to believe that Britt would be able to go ahead and accomplish a lot more in the way of hideous deviltry.  The thought of Britt in that house—­a girl there with no other protection than the presence of a silly mother—­made for agony of apprehension that was excruciating.

One of his most precious dreams had just melted into drab reality—­his mother was compelled to go back to her toil.

His other dream—­the one that was consoling him through the dreary wait of seven years behind bars—­was threatened by the malevolence of a man who was showing himself to be a veritable fiend in his machinations.

Vaniman put some questions to himself.  Who on God’s green earth had a more imperious call to be out—­to be free to fight for himself and the innocent?  Would not a lie be holy if it should open prison doors and allow a guiltless man to go forth and battle with the guilty?  Did not the end justify all the means?  The state had declared that his liberty must be forfeited.  Had the state the right to take away his reason?  Vaniman told himself that he was on the straight road to lunacy.