Nearly every other dwelling had some scandal hung upon it like a signboard from a tavern. Not many miles up the road was a house of a strange memory. A widow lived there—she called herself a widow, but the neighbors called her “a queer un.” They told how a negro preacher freed by his master had settled up in New Hampshire fifty years before and been so much respected that he had married a white woman and had many children; and these children had had children. And one of them had married this woman when she was young and high-stepping. The first she knew of her husband’s grand-parentage was when a gossip twitted her with it. She said nothing, but made an excuse for a trip to the Bermudas with her husband. As soon as she got him there, she sold him at a good price into slavery, and came home calling herself a widow. For that matter, one of the presidents of the United States had been sued in the open courts by a negress for the support of their child; it was said that he sold many of his mulatto children, and that his only indulgence was that when any of his own escaped he would not hunt them with hounds, but laughed and let the rascals escape if they could. The present president of the United States had been in the divorce court and had turned Washington inside out with domestic bickerings. Nearly all the founders of the republic had been plastered with scandal. Many of them were infidels and Dr. Chirnside was always bewailing the decay of religion under the republic. So RoBards reasoned that if there were scandal in his home, it was only what every other home had. The good thing was that his shame was hidden. His house was looked upon as a place of honor. It was unsullied. It must be kept of good repute. There was a certain kind of hypocrisy that was wholesome and decent and necessary to good citizenship. CHAPTER XVII Time was spreading its rust and its vines over everything, eating away the edges of his passions and fastening the hinges of his will so that it could not turn. The hate he felt for Chalender was slowly paralyzed. Having forborne the killing of him lest the public be apprised of what he had killed him for, it followed that Chalender must be treated politely before the public for the same reason. Thus justice and etiquette were both suborned to keep people from wondering and saying, Why? Being unable to avoid Chalender, he had to greet him casually, to pass the time of day, even to smile at Chalender’s flippancies. Under such custom the grudge itself decayed, or retreated at least to the place where old heartbreaks and horrors make their lair. There was much talk of Chalender’s splendid engineering work. His section of the aqueduct prospered exceedingly. He had a way with his men and though there was an occasional outburst, he kept them happier and busier than they were in most of the other sections.