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 til you told me yourself, that it was true."

Beauling looked what he could not say.

"I thought it right," said Dunbar, "to tell Mrs. Dunbar and my daughter what I had heard. Women are more rigorous about such matters than men, and I thought it right to tell them. You are the best judge of what they thought he added, with a faint smile.

Beauling laid his great hands on Dunbar's shoulders.

"I don't know the words," he said—" I don't know the words."

Dunbar freed himself gently.

"When I was a young man," he said, "before I married, I did a great wrong. I have never quite gotten over it. It haunts me sometimes. If anything ever came of it, I don't know. I gave up making inquiries a long time ago. But I often think that perhaps a son of mine, whom I have never seen, has had a hard road to follow in this world. I tell you this," he said, "to show you why I feel about you as I do, Tom."