"The best of us are bad," he said, with a sigh, "but I do my best to behave as a man should. However," he added, glancing at the clock, "it is growing late. Will you hear the rest of this story to-morrow morning?"
"No," and Neil settled himself resolutely in his chair. "Now that I have heard so much I want to know all. My mother lived in the Turnpike House, did she not?"
"Yes; it was a tumble-down old place, and belonged to Heron's father."
"To Heron's father?" Neil made a wry face, for he did not like the idea.
"She paid no rent for it," continued Mr. Cass, taking no notice of the interruption. "Heron refused to accept any. Then she did sewing for several people in the village. My sister, Mrs. Marshall, who was then unmarried, gave her work, and sometimes food--when she would accept it, which was not often. In this way, then, she lived, and found all her joy in you!"
"I have a faint memory of that terrible life," said Neil, musingly. "My poor mother, with her bright hair and blue eyes, always so kind and tender to me. Then that night--ah! how it all comes back to me! The dream--the dream!" and in his agitation he rose to his feet. "It was a shadow of the past--that dream. I was playing with a toy horse by the fire; my mother was sewing. Then he came--my father. I remember running at him with a knife, and afterwards--nothing."
"Is that the very last of your memories?" asked Mr. Cass, watching him keenly, and with an uneasiness he found it hard to disguise.
Neil Webster sat down and passed his hand again across his eyes with a weary gesture. "Yes--no--that is, I remember the dead body with the blood--and afterwards the cold--the mist--the--the----" He made a gesture as though brushing away the past. "I remember nothing more!"
"The cold and the mist are easily explained," Mr. Cass said after a pause. "Your mother, after the murder, took you in her arms and fled from the scene of her crime."
"Don t say that!" cried the young man. "Give her the benefit of the doubt."