obliged to stifle conscience, to disobey his father's counsels and his
mother's pleadings, before he could enjoy them. He had had, in fact, to
cultivate a taste for the sin before the sin was pleasant to him; and he
frankly told himself that night, in thinking it all over, that it was
harder work getting to hell than to heaven.

But then in another year he would become a partner, marry Mary, and
begin a new life. Suddenly it struck him with a new force that he had
not heard from Mary for nearly three weeks. A fear seized him that
while he had been dancing and making merry Mary had been ill and
suffering. He was amazed at his own heartlessness, for surely nothing
but sickness would have made Mary forget him.

The next morning as he went to the bank he posted a long letter to her,
full of affection and contrition and rose-colored pictures of their
future life. He had risen an hour earlier to write it, and he did not
fail to notice what a healthy natural pleasure even this small effort of
self-denial gave him. He determined that he would that very night write
long letters to his mother and Janet, and even to his father. "There was
a good deal he wanted to say to him about money matters, and his
marriage, and fore-talk always saved after-talk, besides it would keep
the influence of the old and better life around him to be in closer
communion with it."

Thus thinking, he opened the door of his uncle's private room, and said
cheerily, "Good morning, uncle."

"Good morning, Davie. Your father is here."

Then Andrew Lockerby came forward, and his son met him with outstretched