“I ain’t been feelin’ jist right toward Philip Davison, as you know, and you an’ me had some trouble one’t; but you know I voted fer ye, er I reckon you know it. Anyway, I did. Well, I come up to Denver not long ago, and this fortune teller I spoke of told me all about that trouble I had with Davison, and about how I was put out that time by you, and everything. She was a clairvoy’nt; went into a trance an’ seen the whole thing, and a lot more that I can’t tell you now, and when she come out of the trance we had a long talk and she give me some good advice. Charged me two dollars, but it was worth ten, and I’d 'a’ paid that ruther than missed it. And when Mrs. Dudley called on her——”
Sibyl affected a very clever confusion.
“I suppose you will think me very foolish, Mr. Wingate, and we women are foolish! I have always refused to believe in fortune tellers, but a friend of mine who had visited this one heard such strange things that——”
“That she went, too,” said Sanders, with an expression of gratification, “and I reckon she’ll be believin’ in fortune tellin’ from this on.”
“Well, it was very strange,” Sibyl admitted with apparent hesitation. “The things she told me caused me to write to Mr. Sanders, and now he is here to tell you what he knows.”
“And it’s a sing’lar story. And not so sing’lar either, when you look it up one side and down t’other. I’d 'a’ told you all about it long ago, but fer certain things that took place.”
Justin, thinking of Lucy and disappointed at not seeing her immediately, had not listened with much attention at first, but now he was becoming interested. It began to dawn on him that this story concerned him. So he looked at Sanders more attentively, with a glance now and then at Sibyl Dudley. He had never admired Mrs. Dudley and he did not admire her now; recalling the things he knew and the things he guessed about her and Clayton, he almost felt at times that he hated her. She was a handsome woman, but even his ignorance discounted the assumed value of rouge and fine raiment. He wondered some times that Clayton could ever have cared for her. He was sure he never could have done so; for, compared with Sibyl, Lucy Davison was as a modest violet to a flaunting tiger lily.
“I set out to ask Doc Clayton some questions about you, the first time I come to his house. You’ll remember that time, fer me and Fogg come together. But Clayton made me mad, when he told me that lie about his crooked arm; instid of answerin’ me, he made fun of me, and I went away without sayin’ anything.”
He chewed energetically on this old memory.
“I didn’t come back fer a good while after that, you’ll reck’lect; I got land at Sumner, an’ farmed there a spell. Finally I sold out, an’ thought I’d take another look at Paradise Valley. I’d been thinkin’ about it all that time, and allowin’ I’d go back when I got ready. I might have writ to you, but I wasn’t any hand to write in them days; and I hadn’t got over bein’ mad at Doc Clayton.”