"That's all right. Her religion tells her to forgive, and not to judge, and a few other sensible truths, which that minister seemed to forget to-day." "I never expected to see you, Van Harrington, asking for quarter in that way!" she flashed. Then she went back to Sarah. What my sister-in-law said set me to thinking queer thoughts. I admired the way she took the matter, though it made me pretty angry at the time. It seemed straight and courageous, like her. If we had married, down there at home in the years past, there would have been some pretty lively times between us. I could never have got her to look at things my way, and I don't see how I could have come to see things her way. For in spite of all the preacher and May had to say, my feeling was unchanged: women and clergy, they were both alike, made for some other kind of earth than this. I was made for just this earth, good and bad as it is,--and I must go my way to my end. CHAPTER XX TREACHERY _Who was the traitor?--Slocum's logic--We send for our accomplice--One look is enough--The poison of envy--I see the last of an old friend--Slocum points the moral--What people know--Public opinion--Cousin Farson again--We lunch at a depot restaurant--I touch granite_ The Monday morning after Mr. Hardman's outbreak, Slocum was waiting for me at my office. In reply to my telegram he had come back from St. Louis, where he had been attending to some business in connection with Farson's railroad. "They got it pretty straight this time," was all he said as a greeting, with a care-worn sort of smile. "They can't prove it! We'll bring suit for libel. I must put myself straight--for family reasons." But the lawyer shook his head doubtfully. "That wouldn't be safe, Van! It's too close a guess. I rather think they've got all the proof they want." "Where did they get it, then? Not out of Lokes. He hasn't any reason to squeal. Nor the judge, nor his brother-in-law!" "Of course not; but how about Frost? This is the way I figure it out: when those rats were euchred in their hold-up game by Garretson's dismissing his injunction, they were mad enough and determined to find out who sold them. It didn't take them long to see that the judge had been fixed in some way. They nosed around, and spotted the judge's brother-in-law as the one who made the trade. Then they started out to get proof." "Well?" Slocum looked at me shrewdly. "I have been thinking about that all the way back from St. Louis. There is only one man left in the combination." We stared at each other for a minute. "You don't mean _him_!" I gasped. "Who else?" "Not Hostetter--not Ed!" "Send for him, and we'll find out," he answered shortly. I telephoned out to our office in the Yards to send Hostetter to the city, and while we waited we discussed the story in all its bearings.