"Time and again during this trial I 've watched that man's fine, stern old face and wondered what his motives and his feelings were when he took that poor beast of a woman to be his wife--whether he really believed her and thought it was his duty; or whether he feared that if he did not, the blood of a woman and a child would haunt him all the rest of his life; or whether the underside of his nature, under her influence, rose up and dominated all that was best in him and made him love her and be willing to marry her.
"Whatever it was, the deed was done, and the woman of the town became Mrs. Hopkins, with Dan Hopkins's gun at her service, ready to take revenge upon anybody who might offer her the least insult or whisper a slighting word about the past.
"He did not try to crowd her down people's throats--they might let her alone if they wished, and they mostly did, I believe--but they were made to understand that they had to treat her and speak of her with respect.
"He bought a big ranch a little way out of town, and there they lived from that time on. As far as I can find out, the woman lived a straight, respectable kind of life for a dozen years or more, and then she died.
"But all her badness seems to have descended to the boy. It's one of the oddest studies in heredity I ever came across. The people here all tell me that until he was thirteen or fourteen years old he was a manly sort of a lad, and gave promise of being something like his father as he grew up. But about that time the evil in him began to show itself, and the older he grew the less moral principle he seemed to possess. He was courageous, they say, and that was the only good quality he had. It was a sort of dare-devil bravery, and along with it he was cruel, thieving, untruthful, and--well, about as near thoroughly bad as they make 'em. At least, that's the sum of the account of him the people here have given me.
"The old man was universally known to be so honest and square in all his dealings, and so upright and honorable in every way, that the son's depravity seemed all the blacker by contrast. He has stood by the young fellow from the first of his wickedness, so everybody says, and has always shown toward him not only steadfast affection, but just the same sort of spirit that he did toward the boy's mother.