“Why, I ran straight for a while,” said Paisley, furtively wiping first one eye and then the other with a finger; “there wasn’t any scandal. Ruth stuck by me, and a married sister of hers (who didn’t know) got her husband to give me a place. I was doing all right, and—and sending home money to ma, and I would have been all right now, if—if—I hadn’t met Mame, and she made a crazy fool of me. Then Ruth shook me. Oh, I ain’t blaming her! It was hearing about Mame. But after that I just went a-flying to the devil. Now you know why I wanted to see Mame.” “You wanted to kill her,” said the sheriff, “or you think you did. But you couldn’t; she’d have talked you over. Still, I thought I wouldn’t risk it. You know she’s gone now?” “I supposed she’d be, now the trial’s over.” In a minute he added: “I’m glad I didn’t touch her; mother would have had to know that. Look here; how am I going to get over that invitation?” “I’ll trust you for that lie,” said Wickliff, sauntering off. Paisley wrote that he would not take his mother’s money. When he could come home on his own money he would gladly. He wrote a long affectionate letter, which the sheriff read, and handed back with the dry comment, “That will do, I guess.” But he gave Paisley a brier-wood pipe and a pound of Yale Mixture that afternoon. The correspondence threw some side-lights on Paisley’s past. “You’ve got to write your ma every week,” announced Wickliff, when the day came round. “Why, I haven’t written once a month.” “Probably not, but you have got to write once a week now. Your mother’ll get used to it. I should think you’d be glad to do the only thing you can for the mother that’s worked her fingers off for you.” “I _am_ glad,” said Paisley, sullenly. He never made any further demur. He wrote very good letters; and more and more, as the time passed, he grew interested in the correspondence. Meanwhile he began to acquire (quite unsuspected by the sheriff) a queer respect for that personage. The sheriff was popular among the prisoners; perhaps the general sentiment was voiced by one of them, who exclaimed, one day, after his visit, “Well, I never did see a man as had killed so many men put on so little airs!”