est Tennessee," he
said.

"If so, I have never heard of him."

"Perhaps not under that name--at any rate you are going to hear of
him now. This man Gatewood, who between ourselves was a damned
scoundrel"--the colonel winced--"this man Gatewood had a friend who
threw money and business in his way--a planter he was, same as Gatewood.
A sort of partnership existed between the pair. It proved an expensive
enterprise for Gatewood's friend, since he came to trust the damned
scoundrel more and more as time passed--even large sums of his money
were in Gatewood's hands--" the judge paused. Fentress' countenance was
like stone, as expressionless and as rigid.

By the door stood Mahaffy with Yancy and Cavendish; they understood that
what was obscure and meaningless to them held a tragic significance
to these two men. The judge's heavy face, ordinarily battered and
debauched, but infinitely good-natured, bore now the markings of deep
passion, and the voice that rumbled forth from his capacious chest came
to their ears like distant thunder.

"This friend of Gatewood's had a wife--" The judge's voice broke,
emotion shook him like a leaf, he was tearing open his wounds. He
reached over and poured himself a drink, sucking it down with greedy
lips. "There was a wife--" he whirled about on his heel and faced
Fentress again. "There was a wife, Fentress--" he fixed Fentress with
his blazing eyes.

"A wife and child. Well, one day Gatewood and the wife were missing.
Under the circumstances Gatewood's friend was well rid of the pair--he
should have been grateful, but he wasn't, for his wife took his child,
a daughter; and Gatewood a trifle of thirty thousand dollars his friend
had intrusted to him!"

There was another silence.

"At a later day I met this man who had been betrayed by his wife and
robbed by his friend. He had fallen out of the race--drink had done for
him--there was just one thing he seemed to care about and that was the
fate of his child, but maybe he was only curious there. He wondered if
she had lived, and married--" Once more the judge paused.

"What's all this to me?" asked Fentress.

"Are you sure it's nothing to you?" demanded the judge hoarsely.
"Understand this, Fentress. Gatewood's treachery brought ruin to at
least two lives. It caused the woman's father to hide his face from the
world, it wasn't enough for him that his friends believed his daughter
dead; he knew differently and the shame of that knowled