been friends since boyhood. I'm going to ask my
first favour of you to-night."

"For yourself, all right; you've got the answer before you ask it."

"We can't separate our lives from our friends, and I owe much in mine
to the man for whom I'm going to speak."

"If you've come to ask me to settle with old Woodman for any imaginary
claim he has, you're wasting your breath. I won't hear it. So cut it!"

Bivens spoke with quick fierce energy. His words fell sharp and
metallic.

"I'm not asking you to settle any old imaginary claim," the young
lawyer went on rapidly, "but a new one that can only appeal to the best
that's in you."

"A new one?" Bivens cried in surprise.

"Yes. I needn't recall what passed between you and the doctor the night
of the ball."

"No, I've quite a clear recollection of it," Bivens answered grimly.

"Let it be enough to say that the torture you inflicted and the sights
he saw in your house drove him insane. Hungry, wretched, in despair
over his misfortunes and the promise he had given his daughter, whom he
loved better than life, in a moment of madness he took a case of your
jewels."

"He took that case of jewels?" Bivens cried with excitement.

"Yes."

The little financier broke into a peal of laughter, walked over to the
chair where the doctor sat, thrust his hands into his pockets and
continued to laugh.

"So, that's what you meant by laughing and sneering in my face as you
left that night, you d----d old hypocrite!"

Stuart suddenly gripped Bivens and spun him around in his tracks.

"That will do now! The doctor is my friend. He's an old broken man
to-night and he's under my protection. He came here at my suggestion
and against his protest. I won't stand for this."

"I'll say what I please to a thief."

"Not this one."

Stuart faced the little dark man with a dangerous gleam in his eye. The
two men glared at each other for a moment and Bivens threw up his hands
in a gesture of disgust.

"Well, what did you come for? To ask me to give him a pension for
robbing me of a case of jewels? I've accused every drunken servant in
the house of the act. Shall I send one of them to the penitentiary and
give the real thief a medal for his skill?"

"I only ask that you allow me to return the value of your jewels and
drop the whole affair."

Bivens's eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened viciously.

"Can the District Attorney of the County of New York compound a
felony?"

"I resig