‘Oh, John! Stay with me, don’t go. It has not been for myself I have feared most, but for you. It was always for you that I have feared, lest he might get an influence, lest he might---- John, stay with me! Have I not the best right to you? I that have----’ ‘Distrusted me always, mother. I don’t blame you, but you know it has been so.’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘I am but a feeble, prejudiced woman. I claim no exception. I do wrong trying to do right, like all the rest, John. I feared, God forgive me, that you might turn out--I thought you were----’ ‘The son of my father,’ he said, with a mingling of sweetness and bitterness which gave something keen and poignant to the sound of his voice. ‘And so I am--and so I must prove myself now.’ CHAPTER VIII. THE CONVICT. When John rushed away in the manner that has been described, Montressor and the other were left together looking at each other blankly. They said nothing so long as the sound of voices without betrayed that he was still there. They sat listening, looking at each other, in silence, till the sound of his footsteps had died away upon the stony pavement, and the quiet street had relapsed into its usual stillness. The look which they exchanged was like that of two convicted criminals waiting breathless till the steps of the avenger had died away. Montressor, at least, had done the young fellow no wrong, but he felt that he had somehow unconsciously, involuntarily, been the means of bringing trouble upon him. He felt like a culprit whispering to his fellow-conspirator when he said, ‘May,’ in a low voice, as if he might be overheard, ‘what does it all mean?’ May looked up at him from where he sat by the table, leaning his forehead upon his hands. He shook his head, but he did not make any reply. ‘May, we’re old friends. I never turned me back upon ye, though many did. I’ve always felt an interest in where ye were, and how your time was running on. I hadn’t much in me power, but many didn’t do that.’ ‘Nobody did it,’ said May. ‘I’m like a martyr, a saint, in that, if in nothing else, Montressor; everyone forsook me. I had not a soul to inquire whether I was living or dead, but you.’ ‘Hush, May, me poor fellow!--your wife and family----’ ‘Do you know what they did? They disappeared, and left no sign of themselves anywhere. They must have changed their name; they sent a sum of money for me, but not a word. I came out not knowing if anyone belonging to me was living or dead, or where they were, or what had become of them. My wife may be at the end of the world for anything I know.’ ‘May be dead,’ said the other, ‘that’s more likely.’ The convict shook his head.