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 pointment he ever had suffered in his life. He had thought her too generous to mention that, at least in that long-drawn cadence of regret and blame. He had hoped that if she spoke of it, she would do so with commendation and a little praise.

"I'm sorry, Miss Louise," he said.

"It doesn't do any good now, Tom. It's always better to be safe than sorry, they say."

"I mean I'm sorry you don't approve what I did, Miss Louise. I'm not sorry for handin' the note to the judge. There wasn't anything else for an honorable man to do."

"You're too easy, Tom; you'll have to get over it."

"Yes, Miss Louise."

"Please don't 'Miss Louise' me, Tom."

"No, ma'am."

"You could have torn the note up, you could have left it there—you could have done anything but bring it back and turn it over to them."

"I could," Tom granted, his eyes downcast, his thinlined light eyebrows drawn in his troubled way of fixing his whole soul upon a thing. "Yes, I could, Miss Louise—ma'am."

"You wouldn't have been dishonest, you'd only have been wise. It would have been different if it had been a good note, belonging to an honest man. Who knows when Withers wrote those dates on the back of that note? Well, I'll bet it wasn't more than a month ago, maybe not that long. The scheme for working you out of your remnant of cattle struck him when he was down