drink. A great burden had passed from
his shoulders, but he was not feeling at his best that morning. He could
scarcely keep his eyes from Peter Ruff.

"Ruff," he said, "I have known you some time, and I have known you to be
a square man. I have known you to do good-natured actions. I came to you
in desperation but I scarcely expected this!"

Peter Ruff emptied his own tumbler and took up his hat.

"Sir Richard," he said, "you are like a good many other people. Now that
the thing is done, you shrink from the thought of it. You even wonder
how I could have planned to bring about the death of this man. Listen,
Sir Richard. Pity for the deserving, or for those who have in them one
single quality, one single grain, of good, is a sentiment which deserves
respect. Pity for vermin, who crawl about the world leaving a poisonous
trail upon everything they touch, is a false and unnatural sentiment.
For every hopelessly corrupt man who is induced to quit this life there
is a more deserving one, somewhere or other, for whom the world is a
better place."

"So that, after all, you are a philanthropist, Mr. Ruff," Sir Richard
said, with a forced smile.

Peter Ruff shook his head.

"A philosopher," he answered, buttoning up his notes.

CHAPTER IX. THE PERFIDY OF MISS BROWN

Peter Ruff came down to his office with a single letter in his hand,
bearing a French postmark. He returned his secretary's morning greeting
a little absently, and seated himself at his desk.

"Violet," he asked, "have you ever been to Paris?"

She looked at him compassionately.

"More times than you, I think, Peter," she answered.

He nodded.

"That," he exclaimed, "is very possible! Could you get ready to leave by
the two-twenty this afternoon?"

"What, alone?" she exclaimed.

"No--with me," he answered.

She shut down her desk with a bang.

"Of course I can!" she exclaimed. "What a spree!"

Then she caught sight of a certain expression on Peter Ruff's face, and
she looked at him wonderingly.

"Is anything wrong, Peter?" she asked.

"No," he answered, "I cannot say that anything is wrong. I have had an
invitation to present myself before a certain society in Paris of which
you have some indirect knowledge. What the summons means I cannot say."

"Yet you go?" she exclaimed.

"I go," he answered. "I have no choice. If I waited here twenty-four
hours, I should hear of it."

"They can have nothing against you," she said. "On the co