You gave the lad shame and scandal. Do you
think, he didn't feel it, was it much or little? He wasn't walking in the
sun, but--"
"Mercy! Mercy!" broke in the old man, his hand before his eyes. He was
thinking of Mercy, his daughter, of the words she had said to him when
she died, "Set him in the sun, father, where God can find him," and her
name now broke from his lips.
Soolsby misunderstood. "Ay, there'll be mercy when right's been done Our
Man, and not till then. I've held my tongue for half a lifetime, but I'll
speak now and bring him back. Ay, he shall come back and take the place
that is his, and all that belongs to him. That lordship yonder--let him
go out into the world and make his place as the Egyptian did. He's had
his chance to help Our Man, and he has only hurt, not helped him. We've
had enough of his second-best lordship and his ways."
The old man's face was painful in its stricken stillness now. He had
regained control of himself, his brain had recovered greatly from its
first suffusion of excitement.
"How does thee know my lord yonder has hurt and not helped him?" he asked
in an even voice, his lips tightening, however.
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