ly sink lower. He saw at once
that the motive of Lettice's brother in angling for this brief (as Alan
concluded that he must have done) was to protect the interests of
Lettice; and so far, the fact was a matter of congratulation. It was his
own great desire, as Larmer knew, to prevent her name from being
mentioned, and to avoid reference to anything in which she had been
indirectly concerned, even though the reference might have been made
without using her name. When Larmer pointed out that this quixotism, as
he called it, would make it almost impossible for his counsel to show
the extreme malignity of his wife and the intolerable persecution to
which he had been subjected, he had answered shortly and decisively,

"Let it be impossible. The first object is not my defence, but hers."

"Your vision is distorted," Larmer had said angrily. "This may seem to
you right and generous, but I tell you it is foolish and unnecessary."

"I will not be guided in this particular thing," Alan rejoined, "by your
reason, but by my feeling. An acquittal at her cost would mean a
lifelong sorrow."

"If I know anything of women, Miss Campion, who does not quite hate you,
would insist on having the whole story told in open court. Perhaps she
may return to England in time for the trial, and then she can decide the
point herself."

"Heaven forbid!" Alan had said. And he meant it. Worse than that, he
tortured himself with the idea, which he called a firm belief, that
Lettice had heard, or would hear, of his disgraceful position, that she
would be unable to doubt that he had struck the fatal blow, and that he
would be dropped out of her heart and out of her life as a matter of
course. How could it be otherwise? What was he to her, that she should
believe him innocent in spite of appearances; or that, believing him
merely unfortunate and degraded, she should not think less well of him
than when he held his name high in the world of letters and in society?

"That dream is gone," he said. "Let me forget it, and wake to the new
life that opens before me. A new life--born in a police cell, baptized
in a criminal court, suckled in a prison, and trained in solitary
adversity. That is the fate for which I have been reserved. I may be
nearly fifty when I come out--a broken-down man, without reputation and
without a hope. Truly, the dream is at an end; and oh, God of Heaven,
make her forget me as though we had never met!"

So, when Mr. Larmer frankl