“Too bad, too bad! wholly incapable, I should say, of meeting the situation by herself. You are convinced in your own mind that Stephen and Bush and the others are dead?” “Yes,” said Benson shortly. “Shocking! Shocking!” said the judge, holding up his hands in horror. “Have you seen either of the ladies since you took the word to them?” asked Benson. For some reason the judge coloured slightly. “I think, indeed, I am quite sure, that I have seen Mrs. Bushrod Landray, being close by—you understand,” he paused, and looked hard at Benson. Benson shot the judge a covert glance. “A most estimable lady,” continued the latter warmly. “I trust Bush left her well provided for?” “He did,” said Benson. “I am relieved to hear it. I had feared that the boys were badly involved. It's a great misfortune for a young and handsome lady to be left as she has been left,” concluded the judge, smiling blandly. “Yes,” agreed Benson, “it is;” but now he turned on the judge with a quickened interest. The expression on his face was half quizzical, half cynical. “Do you suppose she will marry again?” asked the judge with studied indifference. “How should I know?” demanded Benson sharply. “I did not know but that you might have formed some opinion,” ventured the judge with a slightly embarrassed air. He became silent. He settled his stock, and took his tall hat from the table at his elbow, and Benson fell to pulling over the papers on his desk. “When you are ready, Jake, to look into what I have done in your absence—” remarked the judge, about to take his leave. “In a day or two. I have had a pretty long holiday, you know.” “Well, whenever you are ready,” said the judge, quitting the room. Benson turned frowning to the papers on his desk. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX WHEN the railroad came to Benson, it reached down from a lake port, a feeble little tentacle of iron which joined another feeble tentacle that had pushed up from a river point. Theoretically, its coming was in response to the town's need, because of its mills and warehouses, and the bounty of its waving fields of grain; so Colonel Sharp declared in an editorial which contained much Latin, some very superior English, and numerous allusions to destiny; and the town, lacking not in local pride, and having had dreams of civic greatness, was prepared to believe that its importance as a commercial centre was the magnet that drew the road thither. But Jacob Benson and some others knew that the real reason the railroad came, was that they had exchanged certain dollars for uncertain stock; that but for this, the line would have sought the town of Carthage, distant some twenty miles to the east, where the air was heavy with the reek of soft-coal smoke, the chimneys of the blast furnaces blazed unceasingly in the night, and a small but active population worked, drank, and fought, beyond what was habitual to any other population of its size in the State.