“If ever I meet the boy,” observed Barnes with impressive deliberateness, “I shall try to make him live for himself the hour I’ve just lived for him. I listened to a saint, feeling like the Devil.”
“I don’t understand how Joe had the heart to hurt him,” choked the girl.
“He didn’t have the heart—that’s the trouble,” answered Barnes. “No one in the world will venture so far to give us pain as our own.”
Aunt Philomela stirred uneasily.
“For sheer mercilessness,” added Barnes, “give me a relative. It made me squirm to have to save the boy from the shame he deserves.”
“How can we ever thank you for this!” exclaimed Miss Van Patten.
“By letting me stand face to face with the boy sometime.”
Aunt Philomela broke in.
“This act is not like Joe. He was never brutal. I don’t think he understood.”
“No. He probably didn’t understand. That’s the brutal part of it. It’s the brutes who don’t understand.”