choice man. I suppose I'll have to accept that fact." And now he laughed
uproariously, though none too happily.

"Well, Aurora," said he after a time, "you have broken in here,
anyway--just as I broke down your gate last night in my own clumsiness.
Suppose we call it quits. Let's not figure too close on the moving
consideration. There's nothing you can give Horace Brooks, attorney at
law, in the way of pay. And you need Horace Brooks--_only_ as attorney
at law. What can I do for you?'

"I don't know, but all that can be done now for him you can do. I've
nowhere else to go. It wasn't easy for me to come here, but I'd make any
sacrifice for my boy."

"Sacrifices are at a discount in a lawyer's office. I don't ask you to
reconsider your decision, as to me--as to me as your husband. But
speaking of sacrifices, I only point out to you that so far as I'm
concerned as a lawyer in this town, I might as well be your husband or
your lover as your lawyer of record in this case! Since the trial
yesterday, and my walk home with you last night, there'll be plenty
who'll think so anyway. I may be held as a man worse than I ever
was--and neither of us gain by that."

"That may be so," said she, bending her face forward in her hands. "God!
What a trial, what a risk, what a peril I am to myself and everyone I
meet! I've brought loss, suspicion, wrong on you--you who're noble! And
after twenty years----"

"Yes, Aurora. Twenty years outlaws a claim in the law--for men--but not
for women. Now, I take on those twenty years of yours when I take on
this case. I'm clear about that. I can see this thing straight enough.
This town will go into two camps. Ours is the hopeless one, as things
stand now. We are the under dog. If I took this case--maybe even if I
won it--I'd be hated by the men and snubbed by the women of this town.
Now, I see all that clearly. And speaking of pay----"

"Oh, if you would," she exclaimed, leaning toward him, her hands
extended, "I'd do anything you asked me. Do you understand
that--_anything_!"

She paused. In the silence the little clock on the mantel ticked so loud
it seemed almost to burst the walls. He sat for a long time motionless,
and she went on, leaning yet more toward him.

"I've thought it all over again," she said desperately. "I'd--I'd begin
it again--I'd do anything--I'd do _anything_ you asked me----Why, I've
nothing--nothing--oh, so little to give! But--as to what you said last
night--I've tho