Tom shook his head slowly.
"That doesn't mean what it used to, to me, Uncle Silas; nothing means the same any more. It's just as if somebody had hit that part of me with a club; it's all numb and dead. I'm sure of only one thing now: that is, that I'm not going to be a hypocrite after this, if I can help it."
The man put his hand on the boy's knee.
"Have you been that all along, Thomas?"
"I reckon so,"—monotonously. "At first it was partly scare, and partly because I knew what mother wanted. But ever since I've been big enough to think, I've been asking why, and, as you would say, doubting."
Silas Crafts was silent for a moment. Then he said:
"You have come to the years of discretion, Thomas, and you have chosen death rather than life. If you go on as you have begun, you will bring the gray hairs of your father and mother in sorrow to the grave. Leaving your own soul's salvation out of the question, can you go on and drag an upright, honorable name in the dust and mire of degradation?"
"No," said Tom definitely. "And what's more, I don't mean to. I don't know what Doctor Tollivar wrote you about me, and it doesn't make any difference now. That's over and done with. You haven't been seeing me every day for these three weeks without knowing that I'm ashamed of it."
"Ashamed of the consequences, you mean, Thomas. You are not repentant."
"Yes, I am, Uncle Silas; though maybe not in your way. I don't allow to make a fool of myself again."