For some moments neither father nor son spoke a word. The old man was the first to break the oppressive silence.
"So," said he, "this is where I find you at last."
"Yes, it is, and what of it?" retorted Silas sullenly.
"My God! How I have dreaded this shame!—this horror! How the fear of it has haunted me, day and night, for years!"
"If you've come here for to preach to me, why, you might as well drop it; that's all. I ain't no chicken. I'm a man, I am, and game for all there is in the pot. I ain't afraid. I don't want no snivellins around me!"
"Silas, I haven't come here either to preach or snivel. I have come to learn, if I can, whether the agony and blighting shame of seeing a son hanged is likely to be mine or not."
The young reprobate winced visibly at his father's plain speech, and it was with a violent effort, belied by his pallid lips and quavering voice, that he assumed sufficient bravado to reply:
"What's the use of making a fuss about a feller's getting into a little scrape? I'll get out of it all right. All I want is a good lawyer. It might happen to any feller to get into a hole. Fellers get into 'em all the time and get out of 'em again. This morning everybody thought Dorn Hackett was in the worst kind of a hole, but to-night the jailor tells me everybody says he's bound to get out of it."
"Dorn Hackett was innocent. Are you?"
Silas hesitated a moment before he replied: