until the winter was past. It happened that James was
just now very glad to get a cheaper place. He was very short of funds
and until after the election had no time for social functions. All he
needed with a room was to sleep in it.

Jeff was still reading the story from Shelby when his cousin came in
hurriedly. James was excited and very white.

"My God, Jeff! It's come at last. I knew it would ruin me some day," the
lawyer cried, after he had carefully closed the door of the bedroom.

"It won't ruin you, James. Your name isn't mentioned yet. Perhaps it may
not be. It can't hurt you, even if it is."

"I tell you it will ruin me both socially and politically. Once it gets
out nobody will trust me. I'll be the son of a thief," James insisted
wildly.

"You're the son of a man who made a slip and has paid for it," answered
Jeff steadily. "Don't let your ideas get warped. This town is full of
men who have done wrong and haven't paid for it."

"That's one of your fool socialist theories." James spoke sharply and
irritably. "No man's guilty till the law says so. They haven't been in
the penitentiary. He has. That's what damns me if it gets out."

Jeff laid a hand affectionately on his cousin's shoulder. "Don't you
believe it for a moment. There's no moral distinction between the man
who has paid and the man who hasn't paid for his sins toward society.
There is good and there is bad in all of us, closely intertwined, knit
together into the very warp and woof of our lives. We're all good and
we're all bad."

It was with James a purely personal equation. He could not forget its
relation to himself.

"My name is to be voted on at the University Club next month. I'll be
blackballed to a dead certainty," he said miserably.

"Probably, if the story gets out. It's tough, I know." Jeff's eyes
gleamed angrily. "And why should they? You're just as good a man to-day
as you were yesterday. But there's nothing so fettering, so despicable
as good form. It blights. Let a man bow down to the dead hand of custom
and he can never again be true to what he thinks and knows. His judgment
gets warped. Soon Madame Grundy does his thinking for him, along
well-grooved lines."

"Oh, well! That's just talk. What am I to do?" James broke out
nervously.

"I know what I would do in your case."

"What?"

"Come out with a short statement telling the exact facts. I'd make no
apologies or long explanation. Just the plain story as simply as yo