“And he was Mrs. Garth's husband and the father of Joe?”
“The same, I think.”
Sim seemed to stagger under the shock of a discovery that had been slow to dawn upon him.
“How did it come, Ralph, that you brought him here when you came home from the wars? Everything seems, someways, to hang on that.”
“Everything; perhaps even this last disaster of all.” Ralph passed his fingers through his hair, and then his palm across his brow. Sim observed a change in his friend's manner.
“It was wrong of me to say that, it was,” he said. “I don't know that it's true, either. But tell me how it came about.”
“It's a short story, old friend, and easily told, though it has never been told till now. I had done the man some service at Carlisle.”
“Saved his life, so they say.”
“It was a good turn, truly, but I had done it—at least, the first part of it—unawares. But that's not a short story.”
“Tell me, Ralph.”