the corridor.

"Look here, Tutt!" said Mr. Tutt. "I don't know just what you've been
telling young Clifford, or how you've been interfering in his private
affairs, but if you've been persuading him to disregard any wish of his
father plainly expressed in his own handwriting and incorporated with
his will you've gone further than you've any right to go."

"But," expostulated Tutt, "you know how dangerous it is to meddle with
things like that. Our experience certainly shows that it's far wiser to
let the law settle all doubtful questions than to try to guess what the
final testamentary intention of a dead testator really was. Don't you
remember the Dodworth case? A hypersensitive conscience cost our widowed
client ten thousand dollars! I say, leave well enough alone."

"'Well enough'! 'Well enough'!" snarled Mr. Tutt. "Are you going to
constitute yourself the judge of what is well enough for a young man's
soul? I give you fair warning, Tutt: he's heard your side of it, but
before he gets through he's going to hear mine as well!"

Samuel Tutt turned a faint pink in the region of his collar.

"Why, certainly, Mr. Tutt!" he stammered. "Do so, by all means!"

"You jolly well bet I will!" replied Mr. Tutt, jamming on his stovepipe.

Several days passed, however, without the subject being mentioned
further, while the proper steps to probate the will were taken as usual.
Payson Clifford's dilemma had no legal reaction. He had made up his mind
and he was going to stick to it. He had taken the opinion of counsel and
was fully satisfied with what he had done. Nobody was going to know
anything about it, anyway. When the proper time came he would burn the
Sadie Burch letter and forget Sadie Burch. That is, he thought he was
going to and that he could. But--as Plautus says: "_Nihil est miserius
quam animus hominis conscius_."

You see, Payson Clifford, having been sent to a decent school and a
decent college, irrespective of whether his father was a rotter or not,
had imbibed something of a sense of honor. Struggle as he would against
it, the shadow of Sadie Burch kept creeping athwart his mind. There were
so many possibilities! Suppose she was in desperate straits? Hadn't he
better look her up, anyhow? No, he most definitely didn't want to know
anything about her! Supposing she really had rendered some service to
his father for which she ought to be repaid as he had sought to repay
her? These thoughts obtruded themselves upon