"I have paid for it," looking him steadily in the eye, some unexpected manliness rising up, making his tone bitter and marrowy. "I paid for it. But no matter for that. But now you come again. I have had time to think over these things in yonder, John." Soule dropped his hand, drew back, and was silent a moment. "Let it be so. But did you think what you would do, if you refused your aid to me? Have you found work? or a God to preach?" Something in these last words took Yarrow's sudden strength away. He did not answer for a moment. "Work?" feebly. "No,--I haven't heard of any work. As for a God"-- "Well, then, what are your purposes?" coldly. Another silence. "I don't know. I never was worth much," he gasped out at last, stooping, and pulling at his shoestrings. "And now"--said Soule. "There's no need for you to say that!" with a sharp cry. "I don't forget that I have slipped,--that it's too late,--I don't forget." His hands jerked at his coat-fronts in a wild, dazed way. "Stephen!" The woman rose, and let in the air. "I thank you. I'm not sick." Soule turned away. He could not meet the look on the pinched convict-face,--the soul of the man crying out for God or his brother, something to help. There was a silence for a few moments. "You will come with me, Stephen," quietly: then, after a pause, "It is for life. There is but little time left to decide." Was there no help? Had the true God no messenger? The winter-wind blowing through the window filled with fine frost wet his face, lifted the smothering off his lungs. His eyes grew clear, as his full sense returned after a while: seeing only at first, it so happened, the fire in its square frame; and thinking only of that, as the mind always drowsily absorbs the nearest trifle after a spasm of pain. A bed of pale red coals now, furred over with white and pearl-colored ashes. It was a long time since he had seen any open fire,--years, he believed. Where was it that there had been a fire just like that, with the ashes like moss over the heat,--and on a night in winter, too, the wind rattling the panes? Where was it? While Soule stood waiting for his answer, his mind was drifting back, like that of a man in his dotage, through its dull, muddy thoughts, after that one silly memory. He struck on it at last. A year or two after he was married. In the bedroom. Martha was sitting by the fire, with the old yellow dog beside her: she was trying to ride the baby on his neck,--he was the clumsiest brute! He came in and stopped to see the fun; he noticed the fire then, how cozy and warm it all was: outside it was hailing, a gust shaking the house. He had been doing a bit of carpentering,--he did like to go back to the old trade! This was a wicker chair for the baby,--he had made it in the stable for a surprise: the girl always liked surprises and such nonsense. He put it down with a flourish, and he remembered how she laughed, and Ready growled, and how he and she both got on their knees