He had lacerated his soul with those grim memories to earn a yet kinder word.

He had looked even to hear the lad suing for pardon for the harsh opinions wherein he had held him.

Strange was this yearning of his for the boy's sympathy.

He who for twenty years had gone unloving and unloved, sought now in his extremity affection from a fellow-man.
And so in the gloom he waited for a kinder word that came not; then--so urgent was his need--he set himself to beg it.
"Can you not understand now, Kenneth, how I came to fall so low?
Can you not understand this dissoluteness of mine, which led them to dub me the Tavern Knight after the King conferred upon me the honour of knighthood for that stand of mine in Fifeshire?
You must understand, Kenneth," he insisted almost piteously, "and knowing all, you must judge me more mercifully than hitherto." "It is not mine to judge, Sir Crispin.

I pity you with all my heart," the lad replied, not ungently.
Still the knight was dissatisfied.