“Did he get into some bad mix-up, poor fellow?” If there had been anything like that, no wonder it broke her up to think of him.
It surely did break her up. She flushed emotionally.
“The cruel thing was that he didn’t really do what he was accused of,” she said.
“He didn’t?”
“No; but he was a ruined man, and he went away to the Klondike because he could not stay in England. And he was killed—killed, poor boy! And afterward it was found out that he was innocent—too late.”
“Gee!” Tembarom gasped, feeling hot and cold. “Could you beat that for rotten luck! What was he accused of?”
Miss Alicia leaned forward and spoke in a whisper. It was too dreadful to speak of aloud.
“Cheating at cards—a gentleman playing with gentlemen. You know what that means.”
Tembarom grew hotter and colder. No wonder she looked that way, poor little thing!
“But,”—He hesitated before he spoke,—“but he wasn’t that kind, was he? Of course he wasn’t.”