And Lucy, holding her in a close embrace, kissed the tear-stained face.
CHAPTER XVI
THE WAGES OF SIN
The knowledge of why Mary had returned so suddenly came first to Justin through Sloan Jasper himself. Jasper met Justin as he rode along the trail the next day, and told him all about it, without veiled words, and with many fierce oaths.
“He’s killed my girl, damn him; broke her heart! She’s home, cryin’ her eyes out day and night, and all on account of him. She’s a fool; I wouldn’t look at the skunk ag’in, if’t was me; but she’s a woman and that accounts fer it, and it’s killin’ her.”
Justin hastened to convey the news to Curtis Clayton, whom he found at home, in the front yard, engaged in freeing a butterfly from the spoke-like web of a geometric spider. A flush of indignation swept through Justin, as the thought came to him that perhaps Clayton had known all along and had kept silent. Clayton took the butterfly in his hands and began to remove the clinging mesh from its golden wings. When he had done so his fingers were smeared with its gold dust and it crawled along unable to fly. He regarded it thoughtfully.
“I’ve done the best I could; I released it, but I can’t put the gold back on its wings, nor mend them. The rest of its life it will be a draggled wreck, but luckily its life will be short.”
Then Justin told him what he had learned from Sloan Jasper.
Clayton cast the draggled butterfly away and sank to a seat on the door-step. His face filled with a troubled look. For a little while he said nothing.
“I suppose that I am partly to blame for that,” he confessed, humbly. “I have never talked to you about Mrs. Dudley, but I will tell you now that she was once my wife.”
Justin showed no surprise.