ution
nearly gave way when he saw her, small in her big chair and pathetically
patient. He told her the story as guardedly as he could. He began with
Dick's story to him, about his forgotten youth, and went on carefully
to Dick's own feeling that he must clear up that past before he married.
She followed him carefully, bewildered a little and very tense.

"But why didn't he tell me?"

"He saw it as a sort of weakness. He meant to when he came back."

He fought Dick's fight for him valiantly, stressing certain points
that were to prepare her for others to come. He plunged, indeed, rather
recklessly into the psychology of the situation, and only got out of the
unconscious mind with an effort. But behind it all was his overwhelming
desire to save her pain.

"You must remember," he said, "that Dick's life before this happened,
and since, are two different things. Whatever he did then should not
count against him now."

"Of course not," she said. "Then he--had done something?"

"Yes. Something that brought him into conflict with the authorities."

She did not shrink from that, and he was encouraged to go on.

"He was young then, remember. Only twenty-one or so. And there was a
quarrel with another man. The other man was shot."

"You mean Dick shot him?"

"Yes. You understand, don't you," he added anxiously, "that he doesn't
remember doing it?"

In spite of his anxiety he was forced to marvel at the sublime faith
with which she made her comment, through lips that had gone white.

"Then it was either an accident, or he deserved shooting," she said. But
she inquired, he thought with difficulty, "Did he die?"

He could not lie to her. "Yes," he said.

She closed her eyes, but a moment later she was fighting her valiant
fight again for Dick.

"But they let him go," she protested. "Men do shoot in the West, don't
they? There must have been a reason for it. You know Dick as well as I
do. He couldn't do a wrong thing."

He let that pass. "Nothing was done about it at the time," he said.
"And Dick came here and lived his useful life among us. He wouldn't have
known the man's name if he heard it. But do you see, sweetheart, where
this is taking us? He went back, and they tried to get him, for a thing
he didn't remember doing."

"Father!" she said, and went very white. "Is that where he is? In
prison?"

He tried to steady his voice.

"No, dear. He escaped into the mountains. But you can understand his
silence.