"The light that has guided me through my professional life has been a
love of the law. As far as my small powers have gone, I have wished to
preserve it intact. I am sure that the Law and Justice may be made to
run on all-fours. I have been so proud of my country as to make that the
rule of my life. The chance has brought me into the position of having
for a client a man the passion of whose life has been the very reverse.
Who would not say that for an attorney to have such a man as Mr.
Scarborough, of Tretton, for his client, was not a feather in his cap?
But I have found him to be not only fraudulent, but too clever for me.
In opposition to myself he has carried me into his paths."

"He has never induced you to do anything that was wrong."

"'Nil conscire sibi;' that ought to be enough for a simple man. But it
is not enough for me. It cannot be enough for a man who intends to act
as an attorney for others. Others must know it as well as I myself. You
know it. But can I remain an attorney for you only? There are some of
whom just the other thing is known; but then they look for work of the
other kind. I have never put up a shop-board for sharp practice. After
this the sharpest kind of practice will be all that I shall seem to be
fit for. It isn't the money. I can retire with enough for your wants and
for mine. If I could retire amid the good words of men I should be
happy. But, even if I retire, men will say that I have filled my pockets
with plunder from Tretton."

"That will never be said."

"Were I to publish an account of the whole affair,--which I am bound in
honor not to do,--explaining it all from beginning to end, people would
only say that I was endeavoring to lay the whole weight of the guilt
upon my confederate who was dead. Why did he pick me out for such
usage,--me who have been so true to him?"

There was something almost weak, almost feminine in the tone of Mr.
Grey's complaints. But to Dolly they were neither feminine nor weak. To
her her father's grief was true and well-founded; but for herself in her
own heart there was some joy to be drawn from it. How would it have been
with her if the sharp practice had been his, and the success? What would
have been her state of mind had she known her father to have conceived
these base tricks? Or what would have been her condition had her father
been of such a kind as to have taught her that the doing of such tricks
should be indifferent to her? To have bee