"I wish to Heaven I could tell you, Johnny. Yes, I do. I'd like best of all to tell you, and I'll never be quite, quite happy, I reckon, until you've forgiven me for bringing sorrow and disappointment on you. 'Tis not the least of my hopes that all here will forgive me some day; for I couldn't help things falling out as they have, and I never wanted to be a curse in disguise to foster-father, or any of you, same as I seem to be. You can't tell--none of you--how terrible hard it is; and God's my judge, I've often wished this dear old man could have turned against me, and hated me, and let me go free. But he wouldn't send me out and I couldn't go so long as he bade me stop." "You're wriggling away from it," he said. "Who's the man? If there's any on earth have the right to know that much, it's me." "So you have--I grant it. And if it ever comes to be known, you'll be the first to hear, John. But it can't be known yet awhile, for very good reasons. My life's difficult and his life's difficult--so difficult that it may never happen at all. But I pray God it will; and it shall if I can make it happen. And more I can't tell you than that." "You hide his name from me then?" "What does his name matter? I've only told you so much for the pity you ask. I needn't have gone so far. But I can see what knowing this ought to do for you, John, and I hope it will. You understand now that I care for a man as well, heart and soul and body, as you care for me. And for Christ's sake let that finish it between us. I hate hiding things, and it's bitter to me to hide what I'm proud of--far prouder of than anything that's ever happened to me in all my born days. So leave it, and if there's to be pity and mercy between us--well, you're a man, and you can be pitiful and merciful now, knowing I'm in a fix, more or less, and don't see the way out at present. It's a man's part to be merciful, so be a man." The turning point had come for him and he knew that his last hope was dead. This consciousness came not gradually, but in a gust of passion that banished the strongest of him and exalted the weakest. Hate would now be quickly bred from the corpse of his obstinate desires, and he knew and welcomed the thought. "Yes," he said, "you'm right; it's for men to be merciful. No woman ever knew the meaning of the word. So I'll be a man all through--and there's more goes to a man than mercy for them that have wickedly wronged him." He forgot where he stood and raised his voice. "And I'll find him--maybe I know where to look. But I'll find him; and there won't be any mercy then, Dinah Waycott. 'Tis him that shall answer for this blackguard robbery. I can't have you; but, by God, I'll have the price of you!" He woke his father, and Ben, choking, coughed and spat. Then he heaved himself on his arms and pressed his shoulders up to his ears to ease the suffocation within. Dinah ministered to him and John went from the sick-room and from the house.