He saw her, too, as Jack saw her, her gravity turned into sadness, her pallor into the paleness of grief and ill health.

He admitted now that no reason existed why she should write to him while her mother lay dying.

All cause for hardness of heart was passed away.

The tears came to his eyes and he longed for the sight of her face.

For a moment the boy's wild heart grew tender.
He wrote her a letter that night, and it ran as well as he could hope for, as he re-read it next day on his way to the post office twenty miles away.
"DEAR MARY: Jack has just sent me a long letter and has told me what you said.