I knew her mother, who died when the child was born, and a fine woman she was--ten times as good as Kling whom her father made her marry.

But there's somebody else who needs me, and who needs ye more than Masie needs us, and that's yer wife.

How do ye know her heart is not breakin' for somebody to say a kind word to her?
Are ye goin' home and leave her like this?
That's not like ye, and I don't want to hear ye say it.

Do you mean that if she is put away up the river, ye won't stay here and--" "What for, to sit for five years waiting for her to come out?
And what then?
Have you ever seen one reform ?" "And if she gets off, and wanders around the streets ?" "Father Cruse must answer that question." "But ye came all these miles to New York to pull her out of the mess she had got into with that man who's ruined yer home, and ye out in the cold without a cent--and ye forgave her for that--and now that she's locked up with only herself to suffer, ye turn yer back on her and leave her to fight it out alone." "I did not forgive HER, Mrs.Cleary," he said in deliberate tones.

"I forgave her childish nature, remembering the way she had been educated; remembering, too, that I was twice her age.