n the door and stopped and called: 'Fanny Montrose!'

"And I called again, and I called a third time, and only the child came
to answer me. Then I knew in my heart that Fanny Montrose had left me
and run off with Paul Bargee.

III

"I waited all that night without tasting food or moving, listening for
her step on the stairs. And in the morning the postman came without a
line or a word for me. I couldn't understand; for I had been a good
husband to her, and though I thought over everything that had happened
since we'd been married, I couldn't think of a thing that I'd done to
hurt her--for I wasn't thinking then of the millions of Paul Bargee.

"In the afternoon there came a dirty little lawyer shuffling in to see
me, with blinking little eyes behind his black-rimmed spectacles--a toad
of a man.

"'Who are you?' I said, 'and what are you doing here?'

"'I'm simply an attorney,' he said, cringing before my look--'Solomon
Scholl, on a very disagreeable duty,' he said.

"'Do you come from her?' I said, and I caught my breath.

"'I come from Mr. Paul Bargee,' he said, 'and I'd remind you, Mr. Moore,
that I come as an attorney on a disagreeable duty.'

"With that I drew back and looked at him in amazement, and said: 'What
has he got to say to me?'

"'My client,' he said, turning the words over with the tip of his
tongue, 'regrets exceedingly--'

"'Don't waste words!' I said angrily. 'What are you here for?'

"'My client,' he said, looking at me sidelong, 'empowers me to offer you
fifteen thousand dollars if you will promise to make no trouble in this
matter.'

"I sat down all in a heap; for I didn't know the ways of a gentleman
then, Bob, and covered my face with the horror I had of the humiliation
he had done me. The lawyer, he misunderstood it, for he crept up softly
and whispered in my ear:

"'That's what he offers--if you're fool enough to take it; but if you'll
stick to me, we can wring him to the tune of ten times that.'

"I got up and took him and kicked him out of the room, and kicked him
down the stairs, for he was a little man, and I wouldn't strike him.

"Then I came back and said to myself: 'If matters are so, I must get the
best advice I can.'

"And I knew that Joseph Gilday was the top of the lot. So I went to him,
and when I came in I stopped short, for I saw he looked perplexed, and I
said: 'I'm in trouble, sir, and my life depends on it, and other lives,
and I need the best of adv