I couldn’t figure what his game was—it was his own business, anyway—but I did not propose to have him sneering at me. His manner when he said, “Certainly not!” was mighty nasty. I rose and kicked my chair away from me.
“You needn’t show any gratitude if you don’t feel like it, Judge Kingsley. You’ll never hear a word from me about anything that has happened, but I’m not keeping still because you have threatened me. I’m keeping my mouth shut because I’m man enough to do so! And, by gad! I hope you’re man enough, on your side, to show me a little decency and to remember that you have a wife and daughter to protect from scandal and shame. Good day!” I put on my hat and marched out.
I’m making due allowance for the judge’s state of mind, but truly that old hyampus did have the natural ability to stir a man’s temper. A Kingsley and a Sidney got along together about as well as the two parts of a Seidlitz powder do when they meet in a glass of water!
I slammed the door after me, but I had gone only a few feet when I remembered that I had left behind my contracts. Furthermore, I had not finished my business in regard to the deed and the payments. So I whirled and went back in without stopping to knock.
It was as if he had been playing a part with me with a mask to hide his face! He had laid down the mask.
I looked on a fairly hideous scroll of awful, utter woe. That was his face. He was crumpled down in his chair. He did not look at me. I picked up the packet.
“Are you ready to attend to the matter of the deed, sir?”
He wagged his head weakly from side to side. “Later!” he muttered. “Come later. Come this evening, perhaps.”
I went down into the woods and hunted for hours until I found those two revolvers. That face of his was before me all the time. I expected to look up and find him hunting, too. There were other ways of committing suicide than by shooting, but I did not propose to leave those revolvers around loose, seeing that he had made up his mind to use that means of shuffling off. That face which he had exposed to me showed that Judge Kingsley’s soul was near the limit of endurance.
I went about that day sick with fear. My helplessness in the matter was maddening. He was holding me off with his disdain like a man holding an enemy at bay with a pitchfork. And I knew that even if he gave me his confidence there was little a poor devil of my caliber could do in affairs such as his must be.