the street, uncertain, disappointed.

"The law. Yes. That's right! Yoh're just man, Stephen Holmes."

"And yet?"----

"Yes. I dun'no'. Law's right, but Yare's had a bad chance, an'
he's tryin'. An' we're sendin' him to hell. Somethin' 's wrong.
But I think yoh're a just man," looking keenly in Holmes's face.

"A hard one, people say," said Holmes, after a pause, as they
walked on.

He had spoken half to himself, and received no answer. Some
blacker shadow troubled him than old Yare's fate.

"My mother was a hard woman,--you knew her?" he said, abruptly.

"She was just, like yoh. She was one o' th' elect, she said.
Mercy's fur them,--an' outside, justice. It's a narrer showin',
I'm thinkin'."

"My father was outside," said Holmes, some old bitterness rising
up in his tone, his gray eye lighting with some unrevenged wrong.

Polston did not speak for a moment.

"Dunnot bear malice agin her. They're dead, now. It wasn't left
fur her to judge him out yonder. Yoh've yer father's Stephen,
'times. Hungry, pitiful, like women's. His got desper't' 't th'