"Progress!" he exclaimed. "Progress! I tell you he's going to win
out, in spite of all of them, damn 'em!"
Miss Sarah froze in her chair.
"Caleb!" she expostulated. "Caleb!"
And Caleb's face went hot.
"I am very sorry," he muttered contritely. "But I couldn't help it.
When I think of the way that boy has plugged on alone, all his life,
with no one to give him a lift, it--it angers me to think that the very
man whom I have prized as a friend should be the one to make his
problem harder."
"Would you mind explaining, lucidly?" Miss Sarah requested. "And if it
is business to which you are referring, will you please try to make it
as brief and non-technical as possible?"
Once he started to tell her, Caleb realized that it was just what he
had needed to do all along, without knowing it. Briefly as she had
requested, he sketched for her the facts which, so far as he was
concerned, had made of his first sneaking suspicion an absolute
certainty. And he waxed wroth in the recital.
"It's treachery," he snapped, "rank, contemptible treachery. And the
worst part of it all is that, even now, when I am morally certain of
his culpability, I--I can't bring myself to despise the man. He's been
my friend for thirty years, Dexter has, and damn it---- I beg your
pardon, Sarah--but, damn it, I keep on thinking of him, in soft
moments, as my friend now.
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