I have nothing else to do except to listen and--help you if I can." The touch of the priest had steadied him.

"Thank you, Father," he said simply, and went on.
"A year ago, as I have said, my wife left me and went off with a man named Dalton.

Later I learned she was here, and I came over to see what I could do to help her." Father Cruse raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
"Yes, just that--to help her when she needed help, for I knew she would need it sooner or later.

She was not a bad woman when she left me, and she is not now, unless he has made her so.

She is only an easily persuaded, pleasure-loving woman, and when my father was forced into bankruptcy and we all suffered together, she blamed me for giving up what money I had in trying to straighten out his affairs; and then our infant daughter died, and that so upset her mind that when Dalton came along she let everything go.