You may just as well save me all that time and trouble. You're
a lawyer, yourself--I know it."

"Yes."

"And you're a good one and know our code when it comes to secrets. I am
not asking you to expose a family skeleton--I'm demanding that you treat
me as your attorney and trust to my discretion. You are in trouble and
need a helper, and, by gad! you have got to take me into this thing."

Thornton Bristol set his elbows on his knees and clutched his shaking
fingers into his hair.

"I have been meaning to keep it all to myself, sir," he stammered.

"Quite likely. You have done mighty well at it, I should judge. But you
know that any man who acts as his own lawyer usually does a mighty poor
job. He lacks perspective."

Bristol did not reply.

"I have been studying you a little since I have known you," the lawyer
went on. "You are a very strange mixture, my boy. I much fear that in
some things in this life you are too quixotic in your views. We had a
case here in town--a man named Andrew Kilgour--"

"I have heard about that man, sir."

"Thornton, from what glimpses I have had of your nature, I'm going to
tell you here and now that you are covering somebody else's fault. You
are no coward. You would face your own delinquency just as bravely as
you came here and faced me to-night. Now, what did your father do?"

"Speculated with trust funds of estates."

"Old story, eh? Too bad, Morgan. I liked you when you were young."

"But I want you to understand it," cried the son. "It is hard for me to
talk about it, sir, but it isn't exactly the old story. My father was
too indulgent where I was concerned. He tried to do more for me than he
could afford. He didn't tell me the truth about his affairs--I supposed
he was a rich man. I always had everything that money could furnish.
When he found that I was interested in the law he sent me to schools at
home and abroad and ordered me to take my time and go to the bottom of
all."

"Well, I reckon you did," stated Converse. "If ever I saw a chap with
the true legal mind you have it, polished and pointed. You came into
this state and saw a solution for a problem which has blocked us for
twenty-five years. It's good law! And we will have a legislature that
will pass it. But when did you find out that your father had taken other
folks' money?"

"I came home and insisted on going to work in the office. Then he told
me. The settlement was due and had been called for. He was oblig