“And how about the criminal?”
“Do you feel yourself one?”
The flash in the dark eye answered him even before the firmly spoken words:
“No, I do not!”
“Then once more I extend my hand and ask, will you be my friend and brother? I might be able to give you an insight into a life that would verify the words, ‘All is not gold that glitters.’”
There was now no hesitation, and in that handclasp a life-long friendship was sealed. A Christmas morn it was to these two, that all their lives stood out clear and bright.
All that afternoon the two men sat in that quiet comfortable room, and as Owen had first listened to one of the saddest of life histories, so now, in turn, he opened his heart to his new friend, and in the first hour of his new-found friendship he proved it no idle phrase, for in this hour he claimed Nesbit’s trust and full confidence. If Milton could not at first give his sanction to an affair like that of Owen, who having already a wife, however unworthy, could take to his heart another woman, and finding her as he had found her, should hold her above all other women—this certainly, should excite no surprise.
Remembering the woman who, though false to him, he still loved, Milton could not sit in judgment and condemn this other woman who had given the wealth of her love to Owen without first asking leave of some third person or persons. Just at present he could see nothing clearly. He could feel, but was in no condition to reason. Owen saw and understood, and knowing that in his present condition the best thing for Milton was change—change of scene and of mental occupation, he at once decided to put into execution a long-deferred plan of his own. He would travel; he would take Nesbit with him as traveling companion; and just then he remembered an old college mate whom he had not seen for many years. Why not begin the proposed journey by making a call upon the friend of his youth?
Accordingly a dispatch was at once sent to announce their coming and in a very few days the two friends, who had become such in a way so strange and unexpected, were comfortably seated in a luxurious Pullman car en route for the west.