er had
evolved--"this tea--"

"Coffee, sir."

"Excuse me! This coffee goes right to the spot."

They ate and grew confidential. Edging close, but keeping under cover,
Truedale gained the confidence of the lonely, broken man and, late in
the evening, the hideous truth, as Truedale was compelled to believe,
was in his keeping.

For an hour Greyson had been nodding and dozing; then, apologetically,
rousing. Truedale once suggested bed, but for some unexplainable reason
Peter shrank from leaving his guest. Then, risking a great deal,
Truedale asked nonchalantly:

"Have you other children besides this daughter who is on her wedding
trip? It's rather hard--leaving you alone to shift for yourself."

Greyson was alert. Not only did he share the mountain dweller's wariness
of question, but he instantly conceived the idea that the stranger had
heard gossip and he was in arms to defend his own. His ancestors, who
long ago had shielded the recreant great-aunt, were no keener than Peter
now was to protect and preserve the honour of the little girl who, by
her recent acts--and Greyson had only Jed's words and the mountain talk
to go by--had aroused in him all that was fine enough to suffer. And
Greyson was suffering as only a man can who, in a rare period of
sobriety, views the wrecks of his own making.

Ordinarily, as White truly supposed, Peter lied only when he was drunk;
but the sheriff could not estimate the vagaries of blood and so, at
Truedale's question, the father of Nella-Rose, with the gesture
inherited from a time of prosperity, rallied his forces and lied! Lied
like a gentleman, he would have said. Broken and shabby as Greyson was,
he appeared, at that moment, so simple and direct, that his listener,
holding to the sheriff's estimate, was left with little doubt concerning
what he heard. He, watching the weak and agonized face, believed Greyson
was making the best of a sad business; but that he was weaving from
whole cloth the garment that must cover the past, Truedale in his own
misery never suspected. While he listened something died within him
never to live again.

"Yes, sir. I have another daughter--lil' Nella-Rose."

Truedale shaded his face with his hand, but kept his eyes on Greyson's
distorted face.

"Lil' Nella-Rose. I have to keep in mind her youth and enjoying ways or
I'd be right hard on Nella-Rose. Yo' may have heard, while travelling
about--o' Nella-Rose?" This was asked nervously--searchingly.