"In the first place, you and your husband have been away from this part of the country for quite a long time, haven't you?"
"Yes. For a number of years."
"And you have not always been as well off, financially, as you are now?"
"That is quite true. My husband, shortly after our marriage, failed in business, owing—owing to conditions he couldn't control."
"Isn't it true, Mrs. Richards, that those conditions were the result of his marriage to you? Didn't your father, a very rich man, resent your marriage so deeply that he tried to ruin your husband in order to force you to leave him?"
There were tears in the woman's eyes as she nodded her head in answer.
"Thank you. I know this is very painful—but I must really do all this. You refused to leave your husband, however, and when he decided to go to Alaska, you went with him?"
"Yes."
"And there he made a lucky strike, some four or five years ago, that made him far richer than he had ever dreamed of becoming?"
"That is quite true."