"This friend of Gatewood's had a wife--" The judge's voice
broke, emotion shook him like a leaf, he was tearing open his
wounds. He reached over and poured himself a drink, sucking it
down with greedy lips. "There was a wife--" he whirled about on
his heel and faced Fentress again. "There was a wife,
Fentress--" he fixed Fentress with his blazing eyes.
"A wife and child. Well, one day Gatewood and the wife were
missing. Under the circumstances Gatewood's friend was well rid
of the pair--he should have been grateful, but he wasn't, for his
wife took his child, a daughter; and Gatewood a trifle of thirty
thousand dollars his friend had intrusted to him!"
There was another silence.
"At a later day I met this man who had been betrayed by his wife
and robbed by his friend. He had fallen out of the race--drink
had done for him--there was just one thing he seemed to care
about and that was the fate of his child, but maybe he was only
curious there. He wondered if she had lived, and married--"
Once more the judge paused.
"What's all this to me?" asked Fentress.
"Are you sure it's nothing to you?" demanded the judge hoarsely.
"Understand this, Fentress. Gatewood's treachery brought ruin to
at least two lives. It caused the woman's father to hide his
face from the world, it wasn't enough for him that his friends
believed his daughter dead; he knew differently and the shame of
that knowledge ate into his soul. It cost the husband his place
in the world, too--in the end it made of him a vagabond and a
penniless wanderer.
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