d leads an erring nature into consummate villainy.

"Well, now, if you can see what I'm tellin' you, that you are just about
penniless (you will be in a few months; that's it, you will be soon),
then you can see how magnanimous a man can be, even a busy merchant,
a--a commercialist, if I must use the word again. You'll not only be
poor with nobody to support you, but you'll be worse, my dear woman,
you'll be disgraced. That's it, just disgraced. I've kept stavin' it off
for you, but it's comin'--ugly disgrace for you and Marjory."

Mrs. Whately looked steadily at him with a face so blanched with grief
only a hard-hearted wretch like Judson could have gone on.

"I've been gettin' you ready for this for months, have laid my plans
carefully, and I've been gradually puttin' the warnin' of it in your
mind."

This was true. Judson had been most skilfully paving the way, else Mrs.
Whately would not have had that troubled face and burdened spirit after
each conference. The intimation of disaster had grown gradually to
dreaded expectation with her.

"Do tell me what it is, Amos. Anything is better than this suspense.
I'll do anything to save Marjie from disgrace."

"Now, that's what I've been a-waitin' for. Just a-waitin' till you was
ready to say you'd do what's got to be done anyhow. Well, it's this.
Whately, your deceased first husband"--Judson always used the numeral
when speaking of a married man or woman who had passed away--"Whately,
he made a will before he went to the war. Judge Baronet drawed it up,
and I witnessed it. Now that will listed and disposed of an amount of
property, enough to keep you and Marjie in finery long as you lived.
That will and some other valuable papers was lost durin' the war (some
says just when they was taken, but they don't know), and can't nowhere
be found. Havin' entire care of the business in his absence, and bein'
obliged to assoom control on his said demise at Chattanoogy, I naturally
found out all about his affairs. To be short, Mrs. Whately, he never had
the property he said he had. Nobody could find the money. There was an
awful shortage. You can't understand, but in a word, he was a disgraced,
dishonest man--a thief--that's it."

Mrs. Whately buried her face in her hands and groaned aloud.

"Now, Mrs. Whately, you mustn't take on and you must forget the past.
It's the present day we're livin' in, and the future that's a-comin'.
Nobody can control what's comin', but me." He ro