ng our help, probably because he knew he need not ask; and
Clemens enclosed to me a very taking-by-the-throat message which he
proposed sending to the false friend. For once I had some sense, and
answered that this would never do, for we had really no power in the
matter, and I contrived a letter to the recreant so softly diplomatic
that I shall always think of it with pride when my honesties no longer
give me satisfaction, saying that this incident had come to our
knowledge, and suggesting that we felt sure he would not finally wish to
withhold the money. Nothing more, practically, than that, but that was
enough; there came promptly back a letter of justification, covering a
very substantial check, which we hilariously forwarded to our
beneficiary. But the helpless man who was so used to being helped did
not answer with the gladness I, at least, expected of him. He
acknowledged the check as he would any ordinary payment, and then he made
us observe that there was still a large sum due him out of the moneys
withheld. At this point I proposed to Clemens that we should let the
nonchalant victim collect the remnant himself. Clouds of sorrow had
gathered about the bowed head of the delinquent since we began on him,
and my fickle sympathies were turning his way from the victim who was
really to blame for leaving his affairs so unguardedly to him in the
first place. Clemens made some sort of grit assent, and we dropped the
matter. He was more used to ingratitude from those he helped than I was,
who found being lain down upon not so amusing as he found my revolt. He
reckoned I was right, he said, and after that I think we never recurred
to the incident. It was not ingratitude that he ever minded; it was
treachery, that really maddened him past forgiveness.

XXIII.

During the summer he spent at York Harbor I was only forty minutes away
at Kittery Point, and we saw each other often; but this was before the
last time at Riverdale. He had a wide, low cottage in a pine grove
overlooking York River, and we used to sit at a corner of the veranda
farthest away from Mrs. Clemens's window, where we could read our
manuscripts to each other, and tell our stories, and laugh our hearts out
without disturbing her. At first she had been about the house, and there
was one gentle afternoon when she made tea for us in the parlor, but that
was the last time I spoke with her. After that it was really a question
of how soonest and easiest s