thing, and cannot be explained to mean any thing else. What I want you
to understand, distinctly, is this: If your connection with the Clinton
Bank has been, from the beginning, just and honorable, however much it
may now seem to be otherwise, I will undertake your case, and conduct
it, I care not through how great difficulties, to a favorable issue. But
if it has not been--and you know how it stands--do not commit your fate
to me, for I will abandon you the moment I discover that you have been
guilty of deliberate wrong to others."

The countenance of Mr. Dewey fell, and he seemed to shudder back into
himself. For some time he was silent.

"If there is a foregone conclusion in your mind, that settles the
matter," he said, at length, in a disappointed tone.

"All I ask is clear evidence, Mr. Dewey. Foregone conclusions have
nothing to do with the matter," replied Mr. Wallingford, "If you know
yourself to be innocent, you may trust yourself in my hands; if not, I
counsel you to look beyond me to some other man."

"All men are liable to do wrong, Mr. Wallingford; and religion teaches
that the door of repentance is open to every one."

"True, but the just punishment of wrong is always needed for a salutary
repentance. The contrition that springs from fear of consequences,
is not genuine repentance. If you have done wrong, you must take the
penalty in some shape, and I am not the man knowingly to stay the just
progression of either moral or civil law."

"Will you accept a retaining fee, even if not active in my case?" asked
Mr. Dewey.

"No," was the emphatic answer.

A dark, despairing shadow fell over the miserable man's face, and he
turned himself away from the only being towards whom he had looked with
any hope in this great extremity of his life.

Mr. Wallingford retired with pity in his heart. The spectacle was one of
the most painful he had ever witnessed. How was the mighty fallen!--the
proud brought low! As he walked from the prison, the Psalmist's striking
words passed through his mind--"I have seen the wicked in great power,
and spreading himself like a green bay tree; yet he passed away, and lo,
he was not."

When the day of trial came, Mr. Wallingford appeared as counsel for the
creditors of the Clinton Bank, on the side of the prosecution. He did
not show any eagerness to gain his case against the prisoner; but the
facts were so strong, and all the links in the chain of evidence so
clear, that conv