had neither chance nor means nor desire to redeem your fraud. You'd cut the bridge behind you! You thought you'd been knowing enough to eat your cake and have it, to lose your virtue and keep your reputation, to sink half my property through a trap-door and then stand whistling and looking t' other way while I scratched my head and wondered what the devil was in it! Sit down there and write me your note for twenty thousand dollars at twenty days."
Guest was silent a moment. "Propose something reasonable," he said, with the same tragic gentleness.
"I shall let the law reason about it."
Guest gave a little start and fixed his eyes on the ground. "The law wouldn't help you," he answered, without looking up.
"Indeed! do you think it would help you? Stoddard and Hale will help me. I spoke to them this morning."
Guest sprang to his feet. "Good heavens! I hope you mentioned no names."
"Only one!" said Edgar. Guest wiped his forehead and actually tried to smile.
"That was your own, of course! Well, sir, I hope they advised you to—a—temper justice with mercy."
"They are not parsons, Mr. Guest; they are lawyers. They accept the case."
Guest dropped on the sofa, buried his face in his hands, and burst into tears. "O my soul!" he cried. His soul, poor man! was a rough term for name and fame and comfort and all that made his universe. It was a pitiful sight.
"Look here, Edgar," I said. "Don't press things too hard. I'm not a parson either—"
"No, you've not that excuse for your sentimentality!" Edgar broke out. "Here it is, of course! Here come folly and fear and ignorance maundering against the primary laws of life! Is rascality alone of all things in the world to be handled without gloves? Didn't he press me hard? He's danced his dance,—let him pay the piper! Am I a child, a woman, a fool, to stand and haggle with a swindler? Am I to go to the wall to make room for impudent fraud?
