en in a letter that I can get possession of at
any time that I need it, Lettie was there. Why, I do not know. She asked
him to go home with her, but he refused to do so."

Judson would have spoken but my father would not permit it here.

"She started out to that cabin at that hour of the night to meet you,
started with Jean Pahusca, as you had commanded her to do, and you know
he is a dangerous, villainous brute. He had some stolen goods at the
cabin, and you wanted Lettie to see them, you said. If she could not
entrap Phil that night, Jean must bring her out to this lonely haunted
house. You led the prayer meeting that week for Dr. Hemingway. Amos
Judson, so long as such men as you live, there is still need for
guardian angels. One came to this poor wilful erring girl that night in
the person of Bud Anderson, who not only made her tell where she was
going, but persuaded her to turn back, and he saw her safe within her
own home."

"It's Phil that's deceived her and been her downfall. I can prove it by
Lettie herself. She's a very warm friend and admirer of mine."

"She told me in this room not two hours ago that Phil had never done her
wrong. It was she who asked to have you summoned here this morning,
although I was ready for you anyhow."

The end of Judson's rope was in sight now. He collapsed in his chair
into a little heap of whining fear and self-abasement.

"Your worst crime, Judson, is against this girl. You have used her for
your tool, your accomplice, and your villainously base purposes. You
bribed her, with gifts she coveted, to do your bidding. You lived a
double life, filling her ears with promises you meant only to break.
Even your pretended engagement to Marjie you kept from her, and when she
found it out, you declared it was false. And more, when with her own
ears she heard you assert it as a fact, you sought to pacify her with
promises of pleasures bought with sin. You are a property thief, a
receiver of stolen goods, a defamer of character. Your hand was on the
torch to burn this town. You juggled with the official records in the
courthouse. You would basely deceive and marry a girl whose consent
could be given only to save her father's memory from stain, and her
mother from a broken heart. And greatest and blackest of all, you would
utterly destroy the life and degrade the soul of one whose erring feet
we owe it to ourselves to lead back to straight paths. On these charges
I have summoned you to