"No, I think nothing of the sort. It is better to stand in hell, sir, than to wallow in it." Bodney sat down and the old man stood facing him. "But I can hardly realize that it was not a nightmare, George. Go over it with me; tell me about it. How did it happen?" "Why, we simply came in here together and found—him. That’s all." "Yes, that’s all, but it is enough." "Was there very much money involved?" Bodney asked, not knowing what else to say. "Money! I haven’t once thought of the amount. It is the fact that I have been shot with an arrow taken from my own quiver, and poisoned. And yet, when I look at him, as I did today at dinner, I can hardly bring myself to believe my own eyes." "You haven’t—haven’t said anything to him, have you?" "In the way of accusation? No. It would leap from him to his mother. And I charge you to breathe it to no one." "Not even my sister, who is to be his wife?" "No. I will take her case in hand." "But will you permit them to marry?" "Not in a house of God; not in the presence of a guest. If she is determined to marry him against my protest, it must be in secret, as his deed was." "I hope, sir, that everything may—may come out right." "What do you mean by that?" "Why, I hope that you may forgive him. I don’t think that he’s dishonest at heart." "Then you are a fool." "I admit that, Judge. I am a fool, an infamous fool." "But you are not a scoundrel, not a thief." "I might be worse." "Enough of that. You are trying to debase yourself to raise him. Don’t do it. You can’t afford it. You have an honest living to make, and through you I must now look to the future." He turned away, and for a time walked up and down in silence; then, coming back, resumed his place in front of Bodney. "It all comes from my over-confidence in modern civilization. I did not presume to instruct or even advise him as to a course of reading, permitting him to exercise his own fancy; and it led him to that running sore on the face of the earth—Paris. He read French books, the germs thrown off by diseased minds. He lived in a literary pest house, and how could he come out clean? He was prepared for any enormity against nature, and why then should he have drawn the line between me and any of his desires?" He turned away, walking up and down, sometimes rubbing his hands together, as if washing them, then putting them behind him; halting at the desk to gaze down at something; going once to the safe and putting his hand upon it, but snatching it away as if the iron were hot. Bodney followed him about with his eyes, seeing him through cards, hearts and spades. His mind flew back to the game, and he could see the players sitting just as he had left them, the offensive fellow and the regular, behind a redoubt of chips. Only ten dollars more would have saved him; he had fancied so before, but now it was not fancy but almost a perfect knowledge. Why had he not asked the preacher for twenty instead of ten?