THAT afternoon Paul went to Grayson, noting few changes in the place. The sun was fiercely beating down on the streets of the Square. Two or three lawyers, a magistrate, the county ordinary, and the clerk of the court sat in chairs on the shaded side of the Court House. Some were whittling sticks, others were playing checkers, all were talking politics. Under the board awnings in front of the stores the merchants sat without their coats, fighting the afternoon heat by fanning themselves and sprinkling water on the narrow brick sidewalks. A group of one-horse drays, on which idle negroes sat dangling their legs and teasing one another, stood in the shade of the hotel. The only things suggesting coolness were the towering mountains, the green brows of which rose into the snowy, breeze-blown clouds overhead.

Paul found Silas Tye at his bench in his shop. He was scarcely changed at all. Indeed, he seemed to be wearing exactly the same clothing, using the same tools, mending the same shoes. On his bald pate glistened beads of sweat which burst now and then and trickled down to his bushy eyebrows. Paul had approached noiselessly, and was standing looking in at him from the doorway, when the shoemaker glanced up and saw him. With an ejaculation of delight he dropped his work and advanced quickly, a grimy hand held out.

“Here you are, here you are!” he cried, drawing the young man into the shop. “Bearded and brown, bigger an' stronger, but the same Paul I used to know. How are you? How are you?”

“I'm all right, thank you,” Paul answered, as he took the chair near the bench and sat down. “How is Mrs. Tye?”

“Sound as a dollar, and simply crazy to see you,” Silas replied, with a chuckle. “If you hadn't come in we'd 'a' got a hoss an' buggy from Sid Trawley's stable an' 'a' rid out to see you. Jim Hoag this mornin' was tellin' about you gittin' back, an' said he'd already hired you to manage for him. Good-luck, good-luck, my boy; that's a fine job. Cynthy's just stepped over to a neighbor's, an' will be back purty soon. Oh, she was tickled when she heard the news—she was so excited she could hardly eat her dinner. She thought a sight of you. In fact, both of us sort o' laid claim to you.”

“Till I disgraced myself and had to run away,” Paul sighed. “I'm ashamed of that, Uncle Si. I want to say that to you first of all.”

“Don't talk that way.” Silas waved his awl deprecatingly. “Thank the Lord for what it's led to. Hoag was tellin' the crowd how you come back to give yourself up. Said he believed it of you, but wouldn't of anybody else. Lord, Lord, that was the best news I ever heard! Young as you are, you'll never imagine how much good an act o' that sort will do in a community like this. It is a great moral lesson. As I understand it, you fought the thing with all your might and main—tried to forget it, tried to live it down, only in the end to find that nothin' would satisfy you—nothin' but to come back here and do your duty.”

“Yes, you are right,” Paul assented. “I'll tell you all about it some time. I'm simply too happy now to look back on such disagreeable things. It was awful, Uncle Si.”

“I know, and I don't blame you for not talking about it,” the old man said. “Sad things are better left behind. But it is all so glorious! Here you come with your young head bowed before the Lord, ready to receive your punishment, only to find yourself free, free as the winds of heaven, the flowers of the fields, the birds in the woods. Oh, Paul, you can't see it, but joy is shining out o' you like a spiritual fire. Your skin is clear; your honest eyes twinkle like stars. It's worth it—your reward is worth all you've been through, an' more. Life is built that way. We have hunger to make us enjoy eatin'; cold, that we may know how nice warmth feels; pain, that we may appreciate health; evil, that we may know good when we see it; misery, that we may have joy, and death, that we may have bliss everlasting. I've no doubt you've suffered, but it has rounded you out and made you strong as nothing else could have done. I reckon you'll look up all your old acquaintances right away.”

Paul's glance went to the littered floor. “First of all, Uncle Si, I want to inquire about my mother.”

“Oh, I see.” The cobbler seemed to sense the situation as a delicate one, and he paused significantly. “Me an' Cynthy talked about that this momin'. In fact, we are both sort o' bothered over it. Paul, I don't think anybody round here knows whar your ma an' Jeff moved to after they got married. But your aunt went with 'em; she was bound to stick to your ma.”

“They married”—Paul's words came tardily—“very soon after—after Warren recovered, I suppose?”

“No; she kept him waitin' two years. Thar was an awful mess amongst 'em. Your ma an' your aunt stood for you to some extent, but Jeff was awful bitter. The trouble with Jeff was that he'd never been wounded by anybody in his life before, an' that a strip of a boy should shove 'im an inch o' death's door an' keep 'im in bed so long was a thing that rankled. Folks about here done 'em both the credit to think you acted too hasty, an' some thought Jim Hoag was back of it. The reason your ma kept Jeff waitin' so long was to show the public that she hadn't done nothin' she was ashamed of, an' folks generally sympathized with 'er. Finally she agreed to marry Jeff if he'd withdraw the case ag'in' you. It was like pullin' eye-teeth, but Jeff finally give in an' had a lawyer fix it all up. But he was mad, and is yet, I've no doubt.”

“I understand.” Paul was looking wistfully out of the window into the street. “And would you advise me, Uncle Si, to—to try to find them?”

“I don't believe I would,” Silas opined slowly, his heavy brows meeting above his spectacles; “at least not at present, Paul. I'd simply wait an' hope for matters to drift into a little better shape. Jeff is a bad man, a fellow that holds a grudge, and, late as it is, he'd want a settlement o' some sort. I've talked to him. I've tried to reason with him, but nothin' I'd say would have any weight. I reckon he's been teased about it, an' has put up with a good many insinuations. Let 'em all three alone for the present. You've got a high temper yourself, an' while you may think you could control it, you might not be able to do it if a big hulk of a man like Jeff was to jump on you an' begin to pound you.”

“No; I see that you are right,” Paul sighed; “but I am sorry, for I'd like my mother to understand how I feel. She may think I still blame her for—for fancying Warren, even when my father was alive, but I don't. Rubbing up against the world, Uncle Si, teaches one a great many things. My mother was only obeying a natural yearning. She was seeking an ideal which my poor father could not fulfil. He was ill, despondent, suspicious, and faultfinding, and she was like a spoiled child. I am sure she never really loved him. I was in the wrong. No one could know that better than I do. When I went away that awful night I actually hated her, but as the years went by, Uncle Si, a new sort of tenderness and love stole over me. When I'd see other men happy with their mothers my heart would sink as I remembered that I had a living one who was dead to me. Her face grew sweeter and more girl-like. I used to recall how she smiled, and how pretty and different from other women she looked wearing the nice things Aunt Amanda used to make for her. I'd have dreams in which I'd hear her singing and laughing and talking, and I'd wake with the weighty feeling that I had lost my chance at a mother. It seemed to me that if I had not been so hasty”—Paul sighed—“she and I would have loved each other, and I could have had the joy of providing her with many comforts.”

Silas lowered his head toward his lap. The pegs, hammer and awl, and scraps of leather jostled together in his apron. He was weeping and valiantly trying to hide his tears. He took off his spectacles and laid them on the bench beside him. Only his bald pate was in view. Presently an uncontrollable sob broke from his rugged chest, and he looked at the young man with swimming eyes.

“You've been redeemed,” he said. “I see it—I see it! Nobody but a Son of God could look and talk like you do. My reward has come. I don't take it to myself—that would be a sin; but I want you to know that I've prayed for you every day and night since you left—sometimes in much fear an' doubt, but with a better feelin' afterward. You may not believe it, but I am sure there are times when I actually know that things are happenin' for good or ill to folks I love—even away off at a distance.”

“That is a scientific fact.” Paul was greatly moved by his old friend's tone and attitude. “It is a spiritual fact according to the laws of telepathy or thought-transference. Most scientists now believe in it.”

“You say they do?” Silas was wiping his flowing eyes and adjusting his spectacles. “Well, many and many a time I've had proof of it. I could tell wonders that I've experienced, but I won't now—that is, I won't tell you of but one thing, an' that concerned you. Last Christmas Eve me'n Cynthy had cooked a big turkey for the next day, an' made a lot o' other preparations. We had toys an' little tricks to give this child and that one. We had laid in things for pore neighbors to eat and wear, an' both of us was in about as jolly a mood as ever we was in all our lives. We set up rather late that night, an' sung an' read from the Bible, an' prayed as usual, an' then we went to bed. But I couldn't sleep. I got to thinkin' about you an' wonderin' whar you was at an' what sort o' Christmas you was to have. I rolled an' tumbled. Cynthy was asleep—the pore thing was awful tired—an' I got up an' went to the fireplace, where I had buried some coals in the ashes to kindle from in the momin' and bent over, still thinkin' o' you. Then all at once—I don't know how to describe it any other way than to say it was like a big, black, soggy weight that come down on me. It bore in from all sides, like a cloud that you can feel, an' I could hardly breathe. Then something—it wasn't a voice, it wasn't words spoke out of any human mouth, it was just knowledge—knowledge plainer and deeper than words could have expressed—knowledge from God, from space—from some'r's outside myself—that told me you was in a sad, sad plight. I couldn't say what it was, but it was awful. It seemed to me that you was swayin' to an' fro between good an' evil, between light and darkness—between eternal life an' eternal death. I never felt so awful in all my life, not even when my own boy died. I got down on my knees there in the ashes, and I prayed as I reckon never a man prayed before. I pleaded with the Lord and begged 'im to help you—to drag you back from the open pit or abyss, or whatever it was, that you was about to walk into. For awhile the thing seemed to hang an' waver like, and then, all at once, it was lifted, an' I knowed that you was safe. I knowed it—I knowed it.”

Silas ceased speaking, his mild, melting glance rested on the young man's face.

Paul sat in grave silence for a moment, his features drawn as by painful recollection.

“Your intuition was right,” he said. “On that night, Uncle Si, I met and passed through the greatest crisis of my life. I was tempted to take a step that was wrong. I won't speak of it now, but I'll tell you all about it some day. Something stopped me. Invisible hands seemed pushed out from the darkness to hold me back. Your prayers saved me, I am sure of it now.”