A gasp interrupted him at this, and Tom Drake sank back in the carriage as if the intelligence had taken all his strength; but Earle went on: “If you had appeared to have no regret for the past—if, as you gained in strength, you had exhibited no sorrow, nor expressed any appreciation of what had been done for you, or any desire to retrieve your errors, I might have felt that it would be better for others that you should be put where you could do no further mischief. But if you really want to try to become a good man, I am willing to help you. I will be your friend; I will give you employment as soon as you are able for it, and as long as you show a disposition to live aright, I will keep the secret of your past, and no harm shall ever come to you on account of it. Now tell me, Tom, if you are willing to make the trial? Shall we start fair and square from this moment, and see how much better we can make the world for having lived in it?” and Earle turned to the astonished man with a frank, kindly smile on his earnest, handsome face. The man was speechless—dumb. Such a proposal as this had never occurred to him. He had fully expected that as soon as he should be able to bear it he would be transferred from his present luxurious quarters to some vile prison, there to await his trial, and then he had no expectation of anything better than to be sentenced to banishment as a convict for a long term of years, or perhaps for life. Instead, here was hope, happiness, and the prospects of earning an honest living held out to him, and by the hand of him whom he had so terribly wronged. No words came to his lips to express his astonishment, nor the strange tumult of feelings that raged within his heart. His whole soul bowed down before the grand nature that could rise above his own injuries and do this noble thing. Tamora, Queen of the Goth, when suing for the life of her first-born son, prayed thus before Titus Andronicus: “Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? Draw near them, then, in being merciful; Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.” And thus Earle Wayne partook of the nature of the gods; his mercy, his grand self-abnegation and forgiveness, with the helping hand held out so kindly to one of earth’s lost and degraded ones, was indeed the surest badge of his nobility. And Marion Vance, in her meekness, had prophesied truly when she had told him, on her dying bed, that “good would come out of her sorrow.” She had said: “You may, perhaps, be a nobler man for having been reared in obscurity; you will, at all events, realize that a noble character is more to be desired than a mere noble-sounding name.” He was now living out the pure precepts that she had so untiringly taught him during those long, sorrowful years when she was so sadly and uncomplainingly bearing her banishment and disgrace.