But ever since I married her I've led a fairly decent life--she is the one creature who can keep me a little on this side of the jail.

If she leaves me, I'm lost.
What shall I do ?" Lawrence rose to his feet, and stood, trembling like a leaf.

Broussard rose, too.

By some strange, psychic foreknowledge, Broussard knew that some disclosure, poignant and even vital to himself, was then to be made by Lawrence.

It came in Lawrence's next words, dragged out of him, as it were, by a force like that which drags the soul from the body.
"I ask you this," cried Lawrence, "in the name of our mother, for you and I, Victor Broussard, are brothers of the half blood." By that time, Lawrence was weeping convulsively.