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 knowledge ate into his soul.