"Thank you—thank you," he ejaculated. "So there's no doubt about it? Did you actually see him, Mr. Cavanaugh—with your own eyes, I mean? I don't want any hearsay or second-hand report. I want the truth—the facts."
"I spent a week with him, Joel."
Eperson wound the lines around his left hand and brought his desperate eyes back to Cavanaugh's face. "There is one thing more," he gulped, his hand at his throat. "Is he—is John Trott a—a married man?"
"No, Joel; he's single. Marrying didn't seem to be—well, exactly in his line. His time has been taken up with a growing business, his books, a pet dog, and Dora. She was like a loving sister, I understand, till she married a man she loved and moved out of the country. John is a sort of—well, you might say a sort of stay-at-home, soured old bachelor that never took much to women. At least that's the way I size him up. He makes plenty of money, and has laid up some, but I don't think he cares much for it. He's odd—a sort of deep-feeling fellow—different from the general run of men."
In a nervous sort of movement Joel wiped his lips with his hand.
"There is a thing I'd like to know," he said, slowly, impressively, frankly. "You say he is single, and that makes me wonder. Mr. Cavanaugh, truth is truth, and, as you say, right is right; would you mind telling me whether you think he has—has changed—well, in regard to his—his feeling toward Tilly?"
"You are asking me a ticklish question," Cavanaugh said, with a start and a dropping of his honest eyes. "You see, John never came right out and talked plain on that line, and—"
"I was only asking for your personal opinion," emphasized Joel; "in talking with him did you gather that—that his sentiments had undergone no change since he left here?"
"I don't see what good it will do," the old man said, "but since you insist on knowing I may as well admit that I didn't see any change. In my opinion, Joel, he loves her even more than he did. He didn't say so, you understand, but that's what I gathered. I was watching him when I told him about you and her getting married, and I must say I pitied him. I don't know why, but I did. He looked so downcast, and, you might say, almost astonished."
With the groping movement of a man in the dark, Eperson started to get into his wagon, but was stopped by Mrs. Cavanaugh.