lied."

Alston Choate remembered Esther as he had lately seen her, sitting in
her harmonious surroundings, all fragility of body and sweetness of
feeling, begging him to undertake the case that would deliver her from
Jeffrey because she was afraid--afraid. And here was this horribly
self-possessed little devil--he called her a little devil quite plainly
in his mind--accusing that flower of gentleness and beauty of a vulgar
crime.

"My God!" said he, under his breath.

And at that instant Anne, flushed and most sweet, hatted and gloved,
opened the door and walked in. She bowed to Alston Choate, though she
did not take his outstretched hand. He was receiving such professional
insult, Anne felt, from one of her kin that she could scarcely expect
from him the further grace of shaking hands with her. Lydia, looking at
her, saw with an impish glee that Anne, the irreproachable, was angry.
There was the spark in her eye, decision in the gesture with which she
made at once for Lydia.

"Why, Anne," said Lydia, "I never saw you mad before."

Tears came into Anne's eyes. She bit her lip. All the proprieties of
life seemed to her at stake when she must stand here before this most
dignified of men and hear Lydia turn Addington courtesies into farce.

"I came to get you," she said, to Lydia. "You must come home with me."

"I can't," said Lydia. "I am having a business talk with Mr. Choate.
I've asked him to undertake our case."

"Our case," Anne repeated, in a perfect despair. "Why, we haven't any
case."

She turned to Choate and he gave her a confirming glance.

"I've been telling your sister that, virtually," said he. "I tell her
she doesn't need my services. You may persuade her."

"Well," said Lydia cheerfully, rising, for they seemed to her much older
than she and, though not to be obeyed on that account, to be placated by
outward civilities, "I'm sorry. But if you don't take the case I shall
have to go to some one else."

"Lydia!" said Anne. Was this the soft creature who crept to her arms of
a cold night and who prettily had danced her way into public favour?

Alston Choate was looking thoughtful. It was not a story to be spread
broadcast over Addington. He temporised.

"You see," he ventured, turning again to Lydia with his delightful smile
which was, with no forethought of his own, tremendously persuasive, "you
haven't told me yet what anybody is to get out of it."

"I thought I had," said Lydia, taking hea