The suddenly aged man before him did not make any reply. His full eyes seemed to protrude yet more. "I felt something—I wasn't sure. She'd told me years ago the boy was dead. How could I believe I was his father? Don't ask me."
"I wish to God I could have been the father of that boy!" said Hod Brooks deliberately.
"We seem to be talking freely enough!" said Henderson. The perspiration was breaking out on his forehead. But Horace Brooks took no shame to himself for what he had said.
"The mother of that boy," he went on, "is the one woman I ever cared for, Judge. I'll admit that to you. If there were any way in the world so that I could take that woman's troubles on my own shoulders, I'd do it.... So, you see, this wasn't blackmail after all, Judge. It wasn't really politics after all. I was doing this for her."
"For her?"
"Yes. Now listen. You met her as a girl, when she didn't know much. I never met her really to know much about her until she was a grown woman, with a character—a splendid character whose like you'll not find anywhere in this town, nor in many another town. You never had the courage to come out and say that she was your wife—you never had the courage to make her your wife. You thought you could last her out in this town, because she was a person of no consequence—because she was a woman. And all the time she was the grandest woman in this town. But she didn't have any friends. Now, it seemed to me, she ought to have a friend.
"Do you call it blackmail now, Judge?" he asked presently. "Is this politics?"
But he ceased in his assault as he saw the pallor of the face of his antagonist.
"You've got me, Hod!" said Judge William Henderson, gasping. "I confess! It's over. You've got me!"
"Yes, I've got you, but I don't want you," said Hod Brooks. "I'm not after you socially, legally, politically, or any other way. I tell you, I'm thinking of those two women who put your son through college—who had all they could do to keep their souls in their bodies, while you lived the way you have lived here. They paid your debts for you—they advanced cash and character both for you—just two poor women. The question now is, How are you going to pay any of your debts? There'll be considerable accrued interest."