“Trouble?” the merchant said, bluntly. “Will you kindly show me when he's ever been out of it? Since the day he was born it's been scrape after scrape. By all possessed, Billy, when he wasn't a year old I had to spend fifty dollars to encase all the chimneys in with iron grating to keep him from crawling into the fire. He's walked or stumbled into every fire that was made since then. When he was only twelve a man out at the farm fell in a well and nothing would do Carson but that he must go down after him. He did it, fastened the only available rope about the man and sent him to the top, and when they lowered it to Carson he was so nearly drowned that he could hardly sit in the loop. If I had a list of the scrapes that boy went through at home and at college I'd sell it to some blood-and-thunder novel writer. It would make his fortune. Well, what is it now?” “Carson is in very serious trouble I'm afraid, Mr. Dwight,” Garner said, as he took a chair and sat down. “You will have to prepare yourself for a pretty sharp shock. He couldn't help it. It was pushed on him to such an extent that there was no other way out of it and retain his self-respect. Mr. Dwight, you, of course, heard of Dan Willis's death?” “Yes, and thought that now that he was under the sod Carson would surely--” “The death was not an accident, Mr. Dwight,” Garner interrupted, and his eyes rested steadily on the old man's face. “You mean that Willis killed himself--that he--” “I mean that he _forced_ Carson to kill him, Mr. Dwight.” The old merchant's face was working as if in the throes of death; he leaned forward, his eyes wide in growing horror. “Don't, don't say that, Billy; take it back!” he gasped. “Anything but that--anything else under God's shining sun.” “You must try to be calm,” Garner said, gently. “It can't be helped. After all, the poor boy was forced to do it to save his life.” Old Dwight lowered his face to his hands and groaned. The negro at the head of the gang of truckmen approached and leaned in the doorway. He had come to ask some directions about the work, but with widening eyes he stood staring. Garner peremptorily waved him away, and, rising, he laid his hand on Dwight's shoulder. “Don't take it so hard!” he said, soothingly. “Remember, there is a lot to do, and that's what I came to see you about.” Old Dwight raised his blearing eyes, which, in his pallid face now looked bloodshot, and stammered out: “What is there to do? What does it mean? How was it kept till now? Was he trying to hide it?” “Yes”--Garner nodded--“the poor boy has been bearing it in secret. He was afraid the news of it would seriously injure his mother.” “And it will!” Dwight groaned. “She will never bear it in the world. She is as frail as a flower. His conduct has brought her within a hair's-breadth of the grave more than once, and nothing under high heaven could save her from this. It's awful, awful!”