nd sat down and
began to tell about it. "I made him realize the disadvantage you were
under," he said, "being a stranger and not knowing the ground. I
believe he had an idea that you tried to get his confidence on purpose
to attack him. It was Mrs. Robbie, I guess--you know her fortune is all
in that quarter."

Oliver wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "My!" he said.--"And
fancy what old Wyman must be saying about this! And what a time poor
Betty must be having! And then Freddie Vandam--the air will be blue for
half a mile round his place! I must send him a wire and explain that it
was a mistake, and that we're getting out of it."

And he got up, to suit the action to the word. But half-way to the desk
he heard his brother say, "Wait."

He turned, and saw Montague, quite pale. "I suppose by 'getting out of
it,'" said the latter, "you mean dropping the case."

"Of course," was the answer.

"Well, then," he continued, very gravely,--"I can see that it's going
to be hard, and I'm sorry. But you might as well understand me at the
very beginning--I will never drop this case."

Oliver's jaw fell limp. "Allan!" he gasped.

There was a silence; and then the storm broke. Oliver knew his brother
well enough to realize just how thoroughly he meant what he said; and
so he got the full force of the shock all at once. He raved and swore
and wrung his hands, and declaimed at his brother, saying that he had
betrayed him, that he was ruining him--dumping himself and the whole
family into the ditch. They would be jeered at and insulted--they would
be blacklisted and thrown out of Society. Alice's career would be cut
short--every door would be closed to her. His own career would die
before it was born; he would never get into the clubs--he would be a
pariah--he would be bankrupted and penniless. Again and again Oliver
went over the situation, naming person after person who would be
outraged, and describing what that person would do; there were the
Wallings and the Venables and the Havens, the Vandams and the Todds and
the Wymans--they were all one regiment, and Montague had flung a bomb
into the centre of them!

It was very terrible to him to see his brother's rage and despair; but
he had seen his way clear through this matter, and he knew that there
was no turning back for him. "It is painful to learn that all one's
acquaintances are thieves," he said. "But that does not change my
opinion of stealing."

"But my God!" c