"No!" he said hoarsely, "he had enough
wrong done him already."
"What do you mean?" she said imploringly. "Or are you again lying? You
said, four years ago, that he had 'got into trouble;' that was your
excuse for keeping him from me. Or was that a lie, too?"
His manner changed and softened, but not for any pity for his companion,
but rather from some change in his own feelings. "Oh, that," he said,
with a rough laugh, "that was only a kind o' trouble any sassy kid like
him was likely to get into. You ain't got no call to hear that, for," he
added, with a momentary return to his previous manner, "the wrong that
was done him is MY lookout! You want to know what I did with him, how
he's been looked arter, and where he is? You want the worth of your
money. That's square enough. But first I want you to know, though you
mayn't believe it, that every red cent you've given me to-night goes to
HIM. And don't you forget it."
For all his vulgar frankness she knew he had lied to her many times
before,--maliciously, wantonly, complacently, but never evasively; yet
there was again that something in his manner which told her he was now
telling the truth.
"Well," he began, settling himself back in his chair, "I told you I
brought him to Heavy Tree Hill. After I left you I wasn't going to trust
him to no school; he knew enough for me; but when I left those parts
where nobody knew you, and got a little nearer 'Frisco, where people
might have known us both, I thought it better not to travel round with a
kid o' that size as his FATHER.
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