nager,
"I can't feel right over that Lozcoski! Every time I think of him I have
a feeling that, somehow, he hasn't had fair play. There was an awful
anger and despair in his look when he saw Murfree, and an awful terror
met it. There has been wrong somewhere between those two men. You are
sure the Pole had a fair trial?"
"Why, I suppose so. Of course he couldn't make himself understood very
well without an interpreter, and they had difficulty in finding
one--indeed had to give it up, I think--but there seemed no doubt of the
matter."
"But why couldn't they find an interpreter?"
"Well, as I understand it, the man comes from some remote part of the
country, and speaks a villainous patois that even an educated person of
his own land can scarcely make out. He is very ignorant, and slow to
pick up our tongue."
"Was Murfree his only accuser?"
"Virtually. Still, his written deposition was so clear one could not
gainsay it, I have heard."
"Written? Why did he not appear in court?"
"He was ill at the time, I believe. The fact is, it all happened once
when I was east on business, and I really know but little about it,
except from hearsay."
"Possibly this accounts for Lozcoski's anger against the man. Ignorant
as he is, he has no sense of justice, perhaps. But he has suffered
cruelly, and I can't help feeling that there is something he resents
with all his soul."
"How imaginative you are! Don't you think all wrong-doers resent their
punishment?"
"No, I do not. Many times in my life I have felt that I was not getting
the full measure of my dues in that way. In fact, the hardest things in
my experience have not come to me in the guise of reproof. I could not
connect them with any of my ill doings. They just came out of a clear
sky, as it were. Often, when I have been naughtiest, I have seemed to
escape with less of pain and trouble than when I have been trying to be
exceptionally good."
"Perhaps you were not logical enough to trace out cause and effect."
"Possibly not." She looked at him reflectively a moment. "I _am_ very
illogical, I fear. I once told myself that anything I might want to do
to help Littleton would be over your dead body, almost. And, now, I
never make a move without looking to you for the encouragement and
support that make it perfectly satisfactory. I ought to have read you
better from the first!"
Dalton rigidly suppressed the tremor of emotion that shook him from head
to foot, a
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