By the door stood Mahaffy with Yancy and Cavendish; they understood that what was obscure and meaningless to them held a tragic significance to these two men. The judge's heavy face, ordinarily battered and debauched, but infinitely good-natured, bore now the markings of deep passion, and the voice that rumbled forth from his capacious chest came to their ears like distant thunder.
“This friend of Gatewood's had a wife—” The judge's voice broke, emotion shook him like a leaf, he was tearing open his wounds. He reached over and poured himself a drink, sucking it down with greedy lips. “There was a wife—” he whirled about on his heel and faced Fentress again. “There was a wife, Fentress—” he fixed Fentress with his blazing eyes.
“A wife and child. Well, one day Gatewood and the wife were missing. Under the circumstances Gatewood's friend was well rid of the pair—he should have been grateful, but he wasn't, for his wife took his child, a daughter; and Gatewood a trifle of thirty thousand dollars his friend had intrusted to him!”
There was another silence.
“At a later day I met this man who had been betrayed by his wife and robbed by his friend. He had fallen out of the race—drink had done for him—there was just one thing he seemed to care about and that was the fate of his child, but maybe he was only curious there. He wondered if she had lived, and married—” Once more the judge paused.
“What's all this to me?” asked Fentress.
“Are you sure it's nothing to you?” demanded the judge hoarsely. “Understand this, Fentress. Gatewood's treachery brought ruin to at least two lives. It caused the woman's father to hide his face from the world, it wasn't enough for him that his friends believed his daughter dead; he knew differently and the shame of that knowledge ate into his soul. It cost the husband his place in the world, too—in the end it made of him a vagabond and a penniless wanderer.”
“This is nothing to me,” said Fentress.
“Wait!” cried the judge. “About six years ago the woman was seen at her father's home in North Carolina. I reckon Gatewood had cast her off. She didn't go back empty-handed. She had run away from her husband with a child—a girl; after a lapse of twenty years she returned to her father with a boy of two or three. There are two questions that must be answered when I find Gatewood: what became of the woman and what became of the child; are they living or dead; did the daughter grow up and marry and have a son? When I get my answer it will be time enough to think of Gatewood's punishment!” The judge leaned forward across the table, bringing his face close to Fentress' face. “Look at me—do you know me now?”
But Fentress' expression never altered. The judge fell back a step.