"He 's yore father, Freddie, an' he 's penitent. All of us pore mortals need a good deal o' furgivin', an' it does n't matter ef one of us needs a little more or a little less than another: it puts us all on the same level. Remember yore sermon about charity, an'--an' jedge not. You 'ain't seen all o' His plan. Come on." And, taking the young man by the hand, he led him into the room that had been his own. Hester rose as he entered, and shook hands with him, and then she and her husband silently passed out. The sufferer lay upon the bed, his eyes closed and his face as white as the pillows on which he reclined. Disease had fattened on the hollow cheeks and wasted chest. One weak hand picked aimlessly at the coverlet, and the laboured breath caught and faltered as if already the hand of Death was at his throat. The young man stood by the bed, trembling in every limb, his lips now as white as the ashen face before him. He was cold, but the perspiration stood in beads on his brow as he stood gazing upon the face of his father. Something like pity stirred him for a moment, but a vision of his own life came up before him, and his heart grew hard again. Here was the man who had wronged him irremediably. Finally the dying man stirred uneasily, muttering, "I dreamed that he had come." "I am here." Brent's voice sounded strange to him. The eyes opened, and the sufferer gazed at him. "Are you--" "I am your son." "You--why, I--saw you--" "You saw me in Cincinnati at the door of a beer-garden." He felt as if he had struck the man before him with a lash. "Did--you--go in?" "No: I went to your temperance meeting." The elder Brent did not hear the ill-concealed bitterness in his son's voice. "Thank God," he said. "You heard--my--story, an'--it leaves me--less--to tell. Something--made me speak--to you that--night. Come nearer. Will--you--shake hands with--me?" Fred reached over and took the clammy hand in his own. "I have--had--a pore life," the now fast weakening man went on; "an' I have--done wrong--by--you, but I--have--repented. Will you forgive me?" Something came up into Brent's heart and burned there like a flame. "You have ruined my life," he answered, "and left me a heritage of shame and evil." "I know it--God help me--I know it; but won't--you--forgive me, my son? I--want to--call you--that--just once." He pressed his hand closer. Could he forgive him? Could he forget all that he had suffered and would yet suffer on this man's account? Then the words and the manner of old Eliphalet came to him, and he said, in a softened voice, "I forgive you, father." He hesitated long over the name. "Thank God for--for--the name--an'--forgiveness." He carried his son's hand to his lips, "I sha' n't be--alive--long--now,--an' my--death--will set--people--to talkin'. They will--bring--up the--past. I--don't want you--to--stay an' have--to bear--it. I don't want to--bring any more on--you than I have--already. Go--away, as--soon as I am dead."