“What do you want to see him for?”
“What for? To see if there isn't a little human pity in him for a fellow-being in agony—to end my suspense and know whether or not he means to ruin me and my happiness and my home forever!”
Farwell didn't seem to be regarding me so much in the light of a character as usual; still, one thing puzzled me, and I asked him how he happened to come to me.
“Because I thought if anyone in the world could do anything with Gorgett, you'd be the one,” he answered. “Because it seemed to me he'd listen to you, and because I thought—in my wild clutching at the remotest hope—that he meant to make my humiliation more awful by sending me to you to ask you to go back to him for me.”
“Well, well,” I said, “I guess if you want me to be of any use you'll have to tell me what it's all about.”
“I suppose so,” he said, and choked, with a kind of despairing sound; “I don't see any way out of it.”
“Go ahead,” I told him. “I reckon I'm old enough to keep my counsel. Let it go, Farwell.”
“Do you know,” he began, with a sharp, grinding of his teeth, “that dishonourable scoundrel has had me watched, ever since there was talk of me for the fusion candidate? He's had me followed, shadowed, till he knows more about me than I do myself.”
I saw right there that I'd never really measured Gorgett for as tall as he really was. “Have a cigar?” I asked Knowles, and lit one myself. But he shook his head and went on:
“You remember my taking you to call on General Buskirk's daughter?”