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360 were men and women in th' house that couldn't look you in th' face, and that felt shame for th' first time in their lives—mayhap—because you didn't know what they were, an' took 'em to be as innocent as yourself. There's not a sin I haven't tasted, nor a wrong I've not done. I've had murder in my mind, an' planned it. I've been mad for a woman not worth even what Jem Haworth had to give her—and I've won all I'd swore I'd win—an' lost it! Now tell me if there's aught else to do but what I've set my mind on?"

She clung to his heavy hand as she had not clung to it before, and laid her withered cheek upon it and kissed it. Bruised and crushed as she was with the blows he had dealt, she would not let it go free yet. Her words came from her lips a broken cry, with piteous sobs between them. But she had her answer ready.

"That as I've thanked God for all my life," she said, "He'll surely give me in the end. He couldn't hold it back—I've so believed an' been grateful to Him. If there hadn't been in you what would make a good man, my dear, I couldn't have been so deceived an' so happy. No—not deceived—that aint the word, Jem—the good was there. You've lived two lives, may be,—but one was good, thank God! You've been a good son to me. You've never hurt me, an' it was your love as hid from me the wrong you did. You did love me, Jem—I won't give that up—never. There's nothing you've done as can stand agen that, with her as is your mother. You loved me an' was my own son—my boy as was a comfort an' a pride to me from the first."

He watched her with a stunned look.

"You didn't believe them? he said hoarsely, "and you don't believe me?"