"Isn't that all?" Judson asked.
"Not yet. You cannot make returns for some things. If it were all a money proposition it would be simple. The other thing you are going to do, now mark me, I've left you the third of your gains for it. You are going to make good your promise to Lettie Conlow, and you will do it now. You will give her your name, the title of wife. Your property under the Kansas law becomes hers also; her children become the heirs to your estate. These, with an honest life following, are the only conditions that can save you from the penitentiary, as an embezzler, a receiver of stolen goods, a robber of county records, a defamer of innocent men, an accomplice in helping an Indian to steal a white girl, and a libertine.
"I shall not release the evidence, nor withdraw the power to bring you down the minute you break over the restrictions. Amos Judson," (there was a terrible sternness in my father's voice, as he stood before the wretched little man), "there is an assize at which you will be tried, there is a bar whose Judge knows the heart as well as the deed, and for both you must answer to Him, not only for the things in which I give you now the chance to redeem yourself, but for those crimes for which the law may not now punish you. There is here one door open beside the one of iron bars, and that is the door to an honest life. Redeem your past by the future."
For the person who could have seen John Baronet that day, who could have heard his deep strong voice and felt the power of his magnetic personality, who could have been lifted up by the very strength of his nobility so as to realize what a manhood such as his can mean—for one who could have known all this it were easy to see to how hard a task I have set my pen in trying to picture it here.
"No man's life is an utter failure until he votes it so himself." My father did not relax his hold for a moment. "You must square yours by a truer line and lift up to your own plane the girl you have promised to marry, and prosperity and happiness such as you could never know otherwise will come to you. On this condition only will you escape the full penalty of the law."
The little widower stood up at last. It had been a terrible grilling, but his mind and body, cramped together, seemed now to expand.
"I'll do it, Judge Baronet. Will you help me?"
He put out his hand hesitatingly.
My father took it in his own strong right hand. No man or woman, whether clothed upon with virtue or steeped in vice, ever reached forth a hand to John Baronet and saw in his face any shadow of hesitancy to receive it. So supreme to him was the ultimate value of each human soul. He did not drop the hand at once, but standing there, as father to son he spoke:
"I have been a husband. Through all these long years I have walked alone and lonely, yearning ever for the human presence of my loved one lying these many years under the churchyard grasses back at old Rockport. Judson, be good to your wife. Make her happy. You will be blessed yourself and you will make her a true good woman."