ribune of the
people became a Judas Iscariot overnight, with no silver pieces as the
price of his apostasy. If he expected immediate preferment from the
other camp, he was again bitterly disappointed. Life meantime had become
unbearable to him. He was ostracized more studiously than any leper; it
is said that his own father cut him when they passed each other in the
street. His young wife died, heartbroken, it was believed, by the flood
of hatred and vilification that poured in upon her husband. One man
alone stood by Surface in his downfall, his classmate and friend of his
bosom from the cradle, John Randolph Weyland, a good man and a true.
Weyland's affection never faltered. When Surface withdrew from the State
with a heart full of savage rancor, Weyland went every year or two to
visit him, first in Chicago and later in New York, where the exile was
not slow in winning name and fortune as a daring speculator. And when
Weyland died, leaving a widow and infant daughter, he gave a final proof
of his trust by making Surface sole trustee of his estate, which was a
large one for that time and place. Few have forgotten how the political
traitor rewarded this misplaced confidence. The crash came within a few
months. Surface was arrested in the company of a woman whom he referred
to as his wife. The trust fund, saving a fraction, was gone, swallowed
up to stay some ricketty deal. Surface was convicted of embezzlement and
sentenced to ten years at hard labor, and every Democrat in the State
cried, "I told you so." What had become of him after his release from
prison, nobody knew; some of the boarders said that he was living in the
west, or in Australia; others, that he was not living anywhere, unless
on the shores of perpetual torment. All agreed that the alleged second
Mrs. Surface had long since died--all, that is, but Klinker, who said
that she had only pretended to die in order to make a fade-away with the
gate receipts. For many persons believed, it seemed, that Surface, by
clever juggling of his books, had managed to "hold out" a large sum of
money in the enforced settlement of his affairs. At any rate, very
little of it ever came back to the family of the man who had put trust
in him, and that was why the daughter, whose name was Charlotte Lee
Weyland, now worked for her daily bread.

That Major Brooke's hearers found this story of evergreen interest was
natural enough. For besides the brilliant blackness of the narrative