think from his letter that he was a sort of martyr to
principle, and that he'd been driven off to Canada by the heartless
creditors whom he's going to devote his life to saving from loss, if he
can't do it in a few months or years. He may not be a conscious humbug,
but he's certainly a humbug. Take that pretence of his that he would
come back and stand his trial if he believed it would not result in
greater harm than good by depriving him of all hope of restitution!"

"Why, there's a sort of crazy morality in that," said Corey.

"Perhaps," said Bellingham, "the solution of the whole matter is that
Northwick is cracked."

"I've no doubt he's cracked to a certain extent," said Sewell, "as every
wrong-doer is. You know the Swedenborgians believe that insanity is the
last state of the wicked."

"I suppose," observed old Corey, thoughtfully, "you'd be very glad to
have him keep out of your reach, Hilary?"

"What a question!" said Hilary. "You're _as_ bad as my daughter. She
asked me the same thing."

"I wish I were no worse," said the old man.

"You speak of his children," said the Englishman. "Hasn't he a wife?"

"No. Two daughters. One an old maid, and the other a young girl, whom my
daughter knew at school," Hilary answered.

"I saw the young lady at your house once," said Bellingham, in a certain
way.

"Yes. She's been here a good deal, first and last."

"Rather a high-stepping young person, I thought," said Bellingham.

"She is a proud girl," Hilary admitted. "Rather imperious, in fact."

"Ah, what's the pride of a young girl?" said Corey. "Something that
comes from her love and goes to it; no separable quality; nothing that's
for herself."

"Well, I'm not sure of that," said Hilary. "In this case it seems to
have served her own turn. It's enabled her simply and honestly to deny
the fact that her father ever did anything wrong."

"That's rather fine," Corey remarked, as if tasting it.

"And what will it enable her to do, now that he's come out and confessed
the frauds himself?" the Englishman asked.

Hilary shrugged, for answer. He said to Bellingham, "Charles, I want you
to try some of these crabs. I got them for you."

"Why, this is touching, Hilary," said Bellingham, getting his fat head
round with difficulty to look at them in the dish the man was bringing
to his side. "But I don't know that I should have refused them, even if
they had been got for Corey."

IX.

They did not discuss