“Well, you don’t remember any good of her, I fancy--or of her daughter. But let that pass. The year after you went to Heidelberg the girl blossomed out into a woman between two days, and went wrong the day after, as the daughter of such a mother was bound to. I got it into my callow brain that I was responsible. I know better now; I ought to have known better then; but--well, to shorten a long story, she has managed to spoil my life for me, root and branch.” The assayer got upon his feet and swore out of a full heart. “Good God, Brant! You don’t mean to say that you married that brazen----” But Brant stopped him with a quick gesture. “Don’t call her hard names, Ned; I shot a man once for doing that. No, I didn’t marry her; I did a worse thing. Now you know why I can’t turn the clean leaf. Let the blame lie where it will--and it is pretty evenly divided between us now--I’m not cur enough to turn my back on her at this stage of the game.” Hobart tramped up and down the slab-floored porch, four strides and a turn, for two full minutes before he could frame the final question. “Where is she now, George?” Brant’s laugh was of hardihood. “Do you hear that piano going down there in Dick Gaynard’s dance hall? She is playing it.” “Heavens and earth! Then she is here--in Silverette?” “Certainly. Where else would she be?” Hobart stopped short and flung the stump of his cigar far out down the slope. “Brant,” he said solemnly, “I thank God your mother is dead.” “Amen,” said Brant softly. There was another pause, and then Hobart spoke again. “There was a brother, George; what became of him?” “He went to the bad, too--the worst kind of bad. He laid hold of the situation in the earliest stages, and bled me like a leech year in and year out, until one day I got him at a disadvantage and choked him off.” “How did you manage it?” “It was easy enough. He is an outlaw of the camps, and he has killed his man now and then when it seemed perfectly safe to do so. But the last time he slipped a cog in the safety wheel, and I took the trouble to get the evidence in shape to hang him. He knows I have it, and he’d sell his soul, if he had one, to get his fingers on the documents. In the meantime he lets me alone.” “He will murder you some day for safety’s sake,” Hobart suggested. “No, he won’t. I have made him believe that his life hangs on mine; that when I die the dogs of the law will be let loose.” “Oh!” The assayer made another turn or two and then came to sit on the step beside his guest. “One more question, George, and then I’ll let up on you,” he said. “Do you love the woman?” Brant shook his head slowly. “No, Ned; I never did; at least, not in the way you mean. And for years now it has been a matter of simple justice. She was bad enough in the beginning, but she is worse now, and that is my doing. I can’t leave her to go down into the hotter parts of the pit alone.”