"'What cause?' says I.

"He turned, and s'help me, I never want to see the like again. His
face was plumb grey and dead, like wet ashes, while his eyes scorched
through, all dry and hot. Lines was sinkin' into it as I looked.

"'It's worse,' says he, 'unless it's a joke.' He handed me the dope:
'In re Olive Troop Morrow _vs_. Justus Morrow,' and a letter stating
that out of regard for her feelings, and bein' a gentleman, he wasn't
expected to cause a scandal, but to let her get the divorce by
default. No explanation; no word from her; nothing.

"God knows what that boy suffered the next few weeks, but he fought
it out alone. She was proud, but he was prouder. Her silence hurt
him the worst, of course; but what could he do? Go to her? Fine!
Both of us broke and in debt. Also, there's such a thing as diggin'
deep enough to scrape the varnish off of a man's self-respect,
leavin' it raw and shrinking. No! He done like you or me--let her
have her way. He took off the locket and hid it, and I never heard
her name mentioned for a year.

"I'd been up creek for a whip-saw one day, and as I came back I heard
voices in the cabin. 'Some musher out from town,' thinks I, till
something in their tones made me stop in my tracks.

"I could hear the boy's voice, hoarse and throbbing, as though he
dragged words out bleeding, then I heard the other one laugh--a
nasty, sneering laugh that ended in a choking rattle, like a noose
had tightened on his throat.