‘Miss Jordan,’ he said, looking sorrowfully at her—and her eyes fell—’surely I have a right to ask some pity of you. Have you considered what the temptations must be that beset a young man who has been roughly handled at home, maltreated by his father, reared without love—a young man with a soul bounding with hopes, ambition, love of life, with a heart for pleasure, all which are beaten back and trampled down by the man who ought to direct them? Can you not understand how a lad who has been thwarted in every way, without a mother to soothe him in trouble, and encourage him in good, driven desperate by a father’s harshness, may break away and transgress? Consider the case of one who has been taught that everything beautiful—laughter, delight in music, in art, in nature, a merry gambol, a joyous warble—is sinful; is it not likely that the outlines of right and wrong would be so blurred in his conscience, that he might lapse into crime without criminal intent?’
‘Are you speaking of yourself, or are you excusing another?’
‘I am putting a case.’
Barbara sighed involuntarily. Her own father had been unsympathetic. He had never been actually severe, he had been indifferent.
‘I can see that there were temptations to one so situated to leave his home,’ she answered, ‘but this is not a case of truancy, but of crime.’
‘You judge without knowing the circumstances.’
‘Then tell me all, that I may form a more equitable judgment.’
‘I cannot do that now. You shall be told—later.’
‘Then I must judge by what I know——’