The Judge showed signs of coming agitation, but he fought with himself as it was his custom to fight. "What did you tell him?" "I lied, I told him no. John, do you remember the night when they came from the mad-house and told us children that father was dead?" "Don’t, William; don’t. Please tell Florence to come here." William went out and the Judge resumed his walk up and down the pathway of trouble. Yes, he did remember the night when they came from the mad-house, two men in a doctor’s gig; he remembered the lamps on each side of the vehicle, eyes of a great bug, they seemed. But his father’s malady had not come of inheritance, but of fever. But other men had fever and did not go mad. Could it be that he himself had been touched with the disease—touched in the eye with a vision? No, for there was Bodney. He had seen it. "My mind is sound, even in distress," he mused. "But wouldn’t it have been better if I had talked to him kindly about his crime? I ought to have let him know that I saw him. No, his mother would have drawn it out of him—love sucking poison from a wound." Florence entered the room, advanced a few paces, halted, and stood, looking at him. "Well, you sent for me and I am here." "Yes, sit down, please." "No, I thank you." The Judge looked at her sorrowfully. "Did Howard tell you where he intends to go?" Florence looked at him with a smile, but in the smile he saw bitterness. "Does it concern you?" she asked. "I am not a brute, Florence." "No," she said. "A brute is not unnatural." "Don’t, please. I am trying not to be unnatural. There can be a broken heart shielding a heart to keep it from breaking." "You were a judge, a man of justice. And was it just to let him suffer in the dark? Was it right to lock your own lips and put a seal on mine. Judge, I ought to have told him in your presence." "Don’t say that." "But I do say it. You presume upon what you are pleased to think is my strength of character. I am beginning to believe that I was weak instead of strong. Yes, I ought to have told him in your presence. I ought to have said: ’Your father, who has been a judge, has passed sentence upon you without giving you a hearing. He says you are a thief.’" "Hush," said the Judge, in a loud whisper, motioning toward the door. "Don’t talk that way to me. Ah, I have killed all the love you ever had for me." "You have choked it and it is gasping." "I am grieved—but it cannot be undone—the fingers are stiffened about your gasping love." He walked up and down for a time, and then turned again to her. "When you get a letter from him will you let me read it?" "No. His heart will write to mine, and your eye would blur the words." "Don’t say that. I am not without a heart. I had a heart—it is broken." He walked off again, but turned quickly. "Florence, I sometimes wonder if my eye could have deceived me—could have lied to me."