“Listen to me a moment,” I said, taking hold of him. “You are poor and old; I am young, and have ready money. If you will not remain here, as Heaven knows I desire you should, take it with you. I have no one to care for now, and you need it. I will ask it on my knees if it will move you. It is all yours, and I shall feel guilty all my life if you refuse this request, fearing you are poor and in need of it.” “Rather than that,” he answered, “I would live again in this town, where every man is my enemy and accuser. No, I will take none of the money; my needs are few and easily satisfied. But if you will grant me your forgiveness”--there was more tenderness in his voice as he said it than I had ever heard before--“I will take that.” I answered that he had suffered enough, and that I had already forgiven him; that we all had, and that we had long been sure that he had repented of his one fault. “There are but few of us who have to answer for but one fault,” I said. “I know nothing to your discredit except this one mistake.” He stood by this time near the door, with his hand on the latch, and, simply saying good-by, he opened it, and went out into the storm. Determined to make one more effort to induce him to remain at home, I ran bareheaded into the street after him, floundering in the snow almost waist deep as I went, but he was already a considerable distance ahead of me, walking with long strides, and looking straight ahead. The louder I called to him the faster he walked, and after following him almost to where the stores and the square began, he turned the corner, and disappeared forever. CHAPTER XXIX. THE SKELETON AGAIN. Although Jo came to Twin Mounds the day after my mother’s burial, and a few times during the winter, I did not visit him for several months, for I dreaded to go into his house and find him alone in it. I hoped that Mateel would come back, and that their separation would cause them to be happier than they had been, but as Jo ceased his visits to town because I did not return them, at last I could do nothing else.