"He was dismissed for a shameful reason, Reuben. It was discovered that he had been stealing his employer's money." "Mother!" exclaimed Reuben. Then he added quickly, "Perhaps there is some mistake. He may have been falsely accused, as I was." "No, it is not so, unhappily," said Mrs. Roy. "His crime was brought home to him in such a way that he could not deny it. They say he managed it very cleverly—he was always so sharp, poor Owen! He kept the accounts, I believe, and for weeks he managed to take considerable sums of money, and yet, according to the books, all seemed right. But it was found out at last, of course. It seems that he had fallen into bad company, and he wanted the money for gambling debts and the like." "Ah," said Reuben, "I was afraid from what I saw of him that he was going wrong, but I never dreamed of anything so bad as this. Oh, his poor old parents, how will they bear it? It's enough to break their hearts." "Their hearts are just broken, I believe. The poor old man looks as if he'd never lift up his head again. They say that when he'd read the letter that brought the ill news, he opened the old family Bible and took a pen and scored out Owen's name and all he had written about him." "Did he really? Poor old man! He was always so proud of Owen." "To tell the truth they were both almost foolish about him. It was just as if they thought he could not do wrong, like everybody else's child." "Did Owen write himself?" asked Reuben. "No. It would have been better if he had," said Mrs. Roy. "His employer wrote. He has behaved very kindly. He had such a respect for Owen's parents that he would not prosecute him. He advised Owen to come home, but he has not done so, and they do not know where he is, which is an added grief to his mother, though his father does not seem to care. Poor old David has always been proud of his good name, and he feels the disgrace sorely. He is determined to pay back every penny which Owen took, and is going to sell his house and land in order to do so." "Oh, what a pity! That dear old house, where he has lived all his life! Ah, mother, that is real trouble. Mine was nothing compared with it. How can Owen bear to think of the sorrow he has brought upon his father and mother?" The news saddened Reuben greatly, and, despite the brightness of his home-coming, and the joyous welcome he had from every one, he could not soon shake off its sombre influence. It was another instance of the misery that sin works. Fair, peaceful, Ashworth had seemed to Reuben, when he thought of it amid the din and gloom of Birmingham, far removed from the evils of the city. But here, too, were homes darkened by sin, and innocent sufferers sharing the punishment of the guilty. The fact that the bitter consequences of sin are rarely confined to the sinner seemed to Reuben a fresh reason why every true man should gird himself for a lifelong resistance to temptation.