hat her marriage was a fraud?"

"I do."

"There have been pleasanter tasks."

"Will you do it, or will you not?"

"Suppose she will not believe me?"

"You must compel her."

"Young man, have you no compunctions about this business?" said the
judge, leaning forward and looking earnestly into the blue eyes.

"Compunctions?" said David, in a dry echo of the question.

"Yes, compunctions," replied the judge, repeating the word again.

"Oh! some. But for every compunction I have a thousand desperate
determinations. Were you ever in love, Judge?"

"Yes, I have been in love, such love as yours, and that is why I am what
I am now."

As he uttered these words, he lifted the glass which his hand had been
toying with, drained it to the dregs, fixed his eyes on David once more,
and after regarding him a moment with a look of pity, said slowly and
solemnly: "Young man, I am about to give you good advice. You smile? No
wonder! But I beg you to listen to me. Sometimes a shipwrecked sailor
makes the best captain, for he knows the force of the tempest. I have no
conscience for myself, but some unaccountable emotion impels me to bid
you abandon this project. Somehow, as I look at you, I cannot bear to
have you become what I am. You seem so young and innocent that I would
like to have you stay as you are. I wish to save you. How strange it is.
When I look at you, I seem to behold myself as I was at your age."

As he spoke these words the whole expression of his countenance altered,
and faint traces of an almost extinguished manhood appeared. It was as
if beauty, sunk below the horizon, had been thrown up in a mirage.

So tender an appeal would have broken a heart like David's, except for
the madness of illicit love.

"Judge!" he cried, striking the table with his fist, "I did not come
here for advice, I came for help. I am determined to have this woman.
She is mine by virtue of my desire and my capacity to acquire her! I
must have her! I will have her, by fair means or foul. And, Judge, in
this case, the foulest means are fair. What seems an act of injustice is
in reality an act of mercy. You know her husband, and you know as well
as I do that her life with him will be her ruin. You know that the
complacency with which she once regarded him has already turned to
disgust, and that it is only a single step from disgust to hate and
another from hate to murder. She will kill him some day! She cannot help
it. It is human natur