The strong often find it hard to understand how blamelessly the weak may yield to violence. The wise, for all their wisdom, hardly ever can see how innocence itself may lead the unwise into the pit digged by the wicked. No, John Stanley could not go to Colonel Fielding, who, although but as an innocent, helpless child himself now, alas! had been the father of the girl whom he had loved, and who had been given to a bloodthirsty beast in human form. No, he could not do that, even for Miss Judy's sweet sake. So John Stanley thought, under a sudden great wave of the old bitterness, with the pain of memory rushing back as if the flood of wretchedness had engulfed him but yesterday. He could do nothing else than tell Miss Judy, and he must tell her at once--lest she hear it from some other source--and so gently that she could not be frightened, timid as she was. There need be no trouble about the mere money; he did not consider that at all; unknown to Miss Judy, he could shield her from that. Nor was there any danger of so much as a collision of words with the Spaniard, now or at any time. Nothing that could ever come to pass--nothing in the vast power of evil--could make him, whose hands had once been innocently dyed in a fellow-creature's blood, lift his hand against another man, or force him to utter one word to tempt another to raise a hand against himself. Little by little the shadow had deepened, till Miss Judy saw it in his sensitive face, and had begun to grow uneasy before he spoke. "Do you know, or, rather, did you ever know, anything about your father's having given his note to Colonel Fielding," he said, finally, when he could wait no longer. "A note of hand, and without security, I believe." Miss Judy's blue eyes opened wide in startled surprise. Then she blushed vividly; even by the poor light of the one flickering candle the judge could see the rose color flush her fair face, which had been so pale of late. Her father's debts had ever been a sore subject, and, although it was now many years since they had been recalled to her memory by mention, her sensitiveness had not lessened in the least. "No, I do not," she said, with a touch of stiffness. "Our father was not in the habit of speaking to us of business. He thought that gentlewomen should be shielded from all sordid matters," she added, her gentle tone marking a wider distance than had ever before existed between John Stanley and herself. The judge felt it, and realized instantly that he had made a bad beginning, one very far indeed from his intention. "But why do you ask?" inquired Miss Judy, while he hesitated. "My dear Miss Judy, nothing was further from my thoughts than to startle or offend you; but you know that--I only meant to tell you that--that a small matter has arisen which--that an unimportant suit has been filed--"