The younger man went
to the chief hotel of the town, while the elder continued up the highway,
thinking deeply over the subject he had just discussed with Catherwood.
Now, it so happened that Josiah Warmore, the merchant, was a far shrewder
man than G. Field Catherwood suspected. If the latter had been playing a
part, so had the former.
As has been intimated, it came to the knowledge of the merchant, about a
fortnight before, that some one in his employ was systematically robbing
him. Gatherwood first dropped a hint, and then both investigated so far
as the opportunity allowed. The result turned suspicion toward Tom Gordon.
The merchant had learned, in the course of his long and varied experience,
the sad truth that no man in the world can be picked out and declared,
beyond all possibility of doubt, to be absolutely honest. Thousands of
people live and die and go to their graves wrapped in the mantle of
unassailable integrity. It may be they have not defrauded a person out of
a penny, for the simple reason that the temptation has never been strong
enough to make them do so. Had it been a little stronger, they would have
succumbed.
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