Paul was about to reply when Warren suddenly grasped the handle of an ax, and swiftly swinging it to one side as if ready to strike a blow, he panted: “Oh, it's _you_--is it? Well, I've been expectin' you all day. I knowed you'd hear I'd come, an' not lose time..Well, I hain't got no gun--my fool women folks took--” “I haven't either, Jeff,” Paul laughed, appeasingly. “You've got the best of it this time; I'm at your mercy, and I'm glad of it. Turn about is fair play, and if you want to you can brain me with that ax. I really think I deserve it, Jeff. I've had seven years to regret what I did, and I don't want to lose a minute to tell you that I am sorry--sorry as ever a man was in this world.” Silence fell. Warren leaned on his ax-handle and stared with wide eyes and parted lips. When he finally spoke his breath hissed through his teeth. “Say, young feller, if you've come here to poke fun at me I tell you now you've--” “I'm in no mood for that, Jeff,” Paul broke in, with increased gentleness. “I've done you a great injury. I was a silly boy at the time and I've sorely repented. I've come to beg your pardon--to beg it as humbly as I know how.” “Good God! You--you say--you mean--” “I'm sorry, that's all, Jeff. I want to see my mother. You've got more right to her than I have now, after my conduct, but I want to see her and ask her to forgive me, too. A man has but one mother, Jeff, and the time comes to all men when they know what it means to lose one. Is she in the house?” There was an awkward pause. Warren stood swaying like a human tree touched in every branch, twig, and leaf by clashing winds which had never so met before. “Why, I thought--we thought--folks _all_ thought”--Warren dropped his ax, made a movement as if to regain it, then drew his lank body erect, and stood staring through the gloom. “I know,” Paul laughed softly and appealingly, “they think blood, and nothing but blood, can wash out a difference like ours; but there is a better way, Jeff, and that is through good-will. We've been enemies long enough. I want to be your friend. You've taken care of my mother and aunt all these years, and I am genuinely grateful for it.” Warren turned his shattered countenance aside. “I didn't look for you to be this way at all--_at all_,” he faltered, huskily. “I reckon when I heard you was back here I got mad because you was makin' your way up so fast, and I've been steadily goin' down. The devil was in me, an' I thought he was in you, too. Lord, I never dreamt that you'd walk up like this to a--a--feller that--” Warren waved a dejected hand toward the cabin--“that had fetched your mammy to a pig-pen of a shack right in the neighborhood whar you are thought so much of.” “A man doesn't deserve to be well thought of, Jeff, who considers himself better in any way than a less fortunate fellow-being. If you could really understand me you'd see that I actually think _more_ of you than if you were well-to-do.”