"Stop!" cried the younger. "I have come to my senses, I can't bear it."

"I'll say it if it kills you. You did it, I repeat. He longed and prayed
and waited and you didn't come. You didn't write. We could hear nothing.
The best father on earth."

The younger man sank down in a chair and covered his face with his
hands.

"When?" he gasped out finally.

"Three days ago."

"And have you--"

"He is buried beside mother in the churchyard yonder. Now that you are
here I thank God that he didn't live to see what you have become."

The respectable elder brother's glance took in the disreputable younger,
his once handsome face marred--one doesn't foregather with swine in the
sty without acquiring marks of the association--his clothing in rags.
Thus errant youth, that was youth no longer, came back from that far
country. Under such circumstances one generally has to walk most of the
way. He had often heard the chimes at midnight, sleeping coldly in the
straw stack of the fields, and the dust of the road clung to his person.
Through his broken shoes his bare feet showed, and he trembled visibly
as the other confronted him, partly from hunger and weakness and
shattered nerves, and partly from shame and horror and for what reason
God only knew.