Part 95

“Where is he now?”

“He's not here, Walter.”

“He has gone away again, without seeing Elizabeth?”

David cleared his throat.

“He is still a fugitive. He doesn't himself know he isn't guilty. I think he feels that he ought not to see her until--”

“Come, come,” Walter Wheeler said impatiently. “Don't try to find excuses for him. Let's have the truth, David. I guess I can stand it.”

Poor David, divided between his love for Dick and his native honesty, threw out his hands.

“I don't understand it, Wheeler,” he said. “You and I wouldn't, I suppose. We are not the sort to lose the world for a woman. The plain truth is that there is not a trace of Judson Clark in him to-day, save one. That's the woman.”

When Wheeler said nothing, but sat twisting his hat in his hands, David went on. It might be only a phase. As its impression on Dick's youth had been deeper than others, so its effect was more lasting. It might gradually disappear. He was confident, indeed, that it would. He had been reading on the subject all day.

Walter Wheeler hardly heard him. He was facing the incredible fact, and struggling with his own problem. After a time he got up, shook hands with David and went home, the dog at his heels.

During the evening that followed he made his resolution, not to tell her, never to let her suspect the truth. But he began to wonder if she had heard something, for he found her eyes on him more than once, and when Margaret had gone up to bed she came over and sat on the arm of his chair. She said an odd thing then, and one that made it impossible to lie to her later.

“I come to you, a good bit as I would go to God, if he were a person,” she said. “I have got to know something, and you can tell me.”

He put his arm around her and held her close.

“Go ahead, honey.”

“Daddy, do you realize that I am a woman now?”

“I try to. But it seems about six months since I was feeding you hot water for colic.”

She sat still for a moment, stroking his hair and being very careful not to spoil his neat parting.

“You have never told me all about Dick, daddy. You have always kept something back. That's true, isn't it?”

“There were details,” he said uncomfortably. “It wasn't necessary--”

“Here's what I want to know. If he has gone back to the time--you know, wouldn't he go back to caring for the people he loved then?” Then, suddenly, her childish appeal ceased, and she slid from the chair and stood before him. “I must know, father. I can bear it. The thing you have been keeping from me was another woman, wasn't it?”

“It was so long ago,” he temporized. “Think of it, Elizabeth. A boy of twenty-one or so.”

“Then there was?”

“I believe so, at one time. But I know positively that he hadn't seen or heard from her in ten years.”

“What sort of woman?”

“I wouldn't think about it, honey. It's all so long ago.”

“Did she live in Wyoming?”

“She was an actress,” he said, hard driven by her persistence.

“Do you know her name?”