“After I had hung fire long enough to decide I wanted what some other man had won. That's one of the risks you take when you wait until you're sure you're right before you go ahead.” “As a widower, judge—” “At present a widower, Jake; kindly phrase it so; for who is master of his fate?” he adjusted his stock rather pompously. “I am a man of some sentiment. Drat it! At fifty odd, and with sound health, one does not willingly admit that the best things in life are past! There are other widows—damn it, sir! There are maids, too!” and he wagged his head and leered knowingly at Benson. The hot whisky had steadily diminished, but for its disappearance the judge and not Benson was responsible. The judge now tilted the pitcher over the glass he held in his uncertain right hand, but only a drop or two fell from it; he looked hard at his host, but his host avoided his glance. With a sigh he placed the pitcher bottom up on the floor at his feet, and his glass beside it, also inverted. “Jake, have you any influence with her?” “Not the least in the world, judge.” “Hum! That's unfortunate. I hoped that you might have, and that you might be willing to exert it in my behalf; casually, of course, very casually; a word here, a word there.” “I would if I possessed it, judge; but you see in trying to control her expenditures I have sacrificed some portion of her regard.” “And her money will go to that confounded missionary!” and the judge groaned aloud in bitterness of spirit. “But how do you know that it will?” asked Benson. “It is as plain as the nose on your face! He is always there, and she has become a terrible prig; and last night I found her reading, what do you think, Jake? Edwards on 'Redemption!' She told me she felt instructed, quickened, strengthened, by its precious message! Now she'd stick to a lighter intellectual diet if there wasn't a man in sight; she's after more than redemption! Jake, can't you help me? I'm to be pitied, sir! I no sooner see some female capable of engendering a sentimental interest in my breast, than fate intervenes,” he smiled darkly. “I don't mind telling you that this is the third minister of the Gospel who has crossed my path.” He had fallen more and more a prey to his sorrow, until it quite unmanned him, his forebodings becoming of the most gloomy character imaginable. “I shall nip the bud of affection next time before it becomes the open flower of love! I'm marked for disappointment; I feel its blight, and I succumb! Confound it, Jake! she led me on, now I come to think of it—her conduct's been highly scandalous! I wonder what her friends, what her sister-in-law is going to say, when this gets out?” “I wonder, too!” said Benson. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN