The Judge showed signs of coming agitation, but he fought with himself as it was his custom to fight. "What did you tell him?"
"I lied, I told him no. John, do you remember the night when they came from the mad-house and told us children that father was dead?"
"Don't, William; don't. Please tell Florence to come here."
William went out and the Judge resumed his walk up and down the pathway of trouble. Yes, he did remember the night when they came from the mad-house, two men in a doctor's gig; he remembered the lamps on each side of the vehicle, eyes of a great bug, they seemed. But his father's malady had not come of inheritance, but of fever. But other men had fever and did not go mad. Could it be that he himself had been touched with the disease—touched in the eye with a vision? No, for there was Bodney. He had seen it. "My mind is sound, even in distress," he mused. "But wouldn't it have been better if I had talked to him kindly about his crime? I ought to have let him know that I saw him. No, his mother would have drawn it out of him—love sucking poison from a wound."
Florence entered the room, advanced a few paces, halted, and stood, looking at him. "Well, you sent for me and I am here."
"Yes, sit down, please."
"No, I thank you."
The Judge looked at her sorrowfully. "Did Howard tell you where he intends to go?"
Florence looked at him with a smile, but in the smile he saw bitterness. "Does it concern you?" she asked.
"I am not a brute, Florence."