Broussard's lighted cigar dropped to the floor, and lay there smoldering.
"But--but--" stammered Broussard, "my half-brother, my mother's son by her first marriage, died when I was a boy.

My mother wore mourning for him." "Yes," answered Lawrence, recovering himself a little, "she thought I was dead when I was in double irons for mutiny on a merchant ship.

It was one of God's mercies that she thought me dead when I was living a life that would have been worse than death to her.

Look you, I have disobeyed and defied and disgraced the God that made me, but I have never ceased to believe in Him.

And, blackguard that I was and am, I had the best mother, and I have the best wife----" There was a tense silence for a minute.