“That? Why, that must be walnut-stains from last year. Didn't you ever get walnut-stains on your hands when you was a boy, Mr. Oakley?” “I suppose so, but I don't remember that they lasted all winter.” Clarence was discreetly silent. He felt that the chief executive of the Huckleberry took too great an interest in his personal habits. Besides, it was positively painful to have to tell lies that went so wide of the mark as his had gone. “I guess you may as well go home now. But I wouldn't smoke any more cigarettes, if I were you,” gathering up his letters. “Good-night, Mr. Oakley,” with happy alacrity. “Good-night, Clarence.” The door into the yards closed with a bang, and Clarence, gleefully skipping the mud-puddles which lay in his path, hurried his small person off through the rain and mist. Oakley glanced at his letters. One he saw was from General Cornish. It proved to be a brief note, scribbled in pencil on the back of a telegram blank. The general would arrive in Antioch that night on the late train. He wished Oakley to meet him. The other letter was in an unfamiliar hand. Oakley opened it. Like the first, it was brief and to the point, but he did not at once grasp its meaning. This is what he read: _“DEAR Sir,--I enclose two newspaper clippings which fully explain themselves. Your father is much interested in knowing your whereabouts. I have not furnished him with any definite information on this point, as I have not felt at liberty to do so. However, I was able to tell him I believed you were doing well. Should you desire to write him, I will gladly undertake to see that any communication you may send care of this office will reach him._ “_Very sincerely yours,_ _“Ezra Hart.”_ It was like a bolt from a clear sky. He drew a deep, quick breath. Then he took up the newspaper clippings. One was a florid column-and-a-half account of a fire in the hospital ward of the Massachusetts State prison, and dealt particularly with the heroism of Roger Oakley, a life prisoner, in leading a rescue. The other clipping, merely a paragraph, was of more recent date. It announced that Roger Oakley had been pardoned. Oakley had scarcely thought of his father in years. The man and his concerns--his crime and his tragic atonement--had passed completely out of his life, but now he was free, if he chose, to enter it again. There was such suddenness in the thought that he turned sick on the moment; a great wave of self-pity enveloped him, the recollection of his struggles and his shame--the bitter, helpless shame of a child--returned. He felt only resentment towards this man whose crime had blasted his youth, robbing him of every ordinary advantage, and clearly the end was not yet.