gain
time--and he knew that he would be hung--and he was. But he saved his
people. And I wish you would remember that, Mr. Farr, for it explains a
bit the state of mind of Andrew Kilgour.

"He wouldn't sell himself for the gang's dirty work--he made honest
reports. So they did for him, Mr. Farr. And he couldn't afford to have
them do for him, because his wife was vain and a spendthrift and he let
her waste and spend because he was a good and simple man when it came to
the matter of a woman's domination over him. That's the curse on strong
men--they are tender when it comes to a woman. She wasn't worthy of him,
his wife. It's the daughter who has his honesty. I think if she knew who
had done for her father she would not stay in Symonds Dodd's office. But
the gang does for a man most often without leaving the trail open when
they run away and hide.

"He would come here and sit with me and smoke and was very silent. I
knew there were debts and I knew well enough that the woman wanted him
to sell himself.

"He raked and scraped money--he sold everything of his own, his
instruments and all. He took out every cent of insurance that money
would buy. Then he put prussic acid in a capsule--a shell of salol,
I believe they said it was--so that the work of the poison would be
delayed, and he swallowed the capsule on the street and went into an
office and sat and chatted with friends and joked and laughed much more
than was his habit till at last his eyes closed and his face grew
white and he fell out of his chair upon the floor stone-dead, and never
uttered a groan.

"It was brave work. They called it heart disease, but it's not easy
to fool insurance people. They took him out of his grave and proved
suicide--and they did not pay a dollar of insurance to his family. They
were not obliged to. The policies were new and the suicide clause let
the companies out. So he left only debts instead of twenty-five thousand
dollars. However, I say it was brave work."

"It would have been braver to stay and face it," blurted Farr.

"But Andrew Kilgour had a code of his own--a state of mind some of us
could not understand--the example of an ancestor. We are not all alike.
Many cannot stay and face trouble. You might be able to do it--you seem
to have a level head!"

Farr grew pale, his hands trembled on the arms of his chair, and then
he got up and marched across the little shop to the window, turning his
back on Citizen Drew.

"You t