“Mr. Oakley,” said Ryder, coldly and insultingly, “I propose, if I can, to make this town too hot to hold your son, and I am grateful to you for the unconscious compliment you have paid me by this visit.”
“Dannie don't know I came,” quickly.
“No, I don't suppose he does. I take it it was an inspiration of your own.”
Roger Oakley had risen from his seat.
“What's Dannie ever done to you?” he asked, with just the least perceptible tremor in his tones.
Ryder shrugged his shoulders. “We don't need him in Antioch.”
The old man mastered his wrath, and said, gently:
“You can't afford to be unfair, Mr. Ryder. No one can afford to be unfair. You are too young a man to persevere in what you know to be wrong.”
To maintain his composure required a great effort. In the riotous days of his youth he had concluded most arguments in which he had become involved with his fists. Aged and broken, his religion overlay his still vigorous physical strength but thinly, as a veneer. He squared his massive shoulders and stood erect, like a man in his prime, and glowered heavily on the editor.
“I trust you have always been able to make right your guiding star,” retorted Ryder, jeeringly. The anger instantly faded from the old convict's face. He was recalled to himself.