loving soul shrinks from having to look at poor,
helpless, misshapen Penelope. I understand perfectly well
that you much prefer to look at young and pretty women, but
my mind is set on this matter. You must do as I--shall we
say, suggest?--and that without delay or--there will be
consequences. Her poor body is not half so ugly or repulsive
as your selfish soul, Felix Brand, and you know very well
who is responsible for them both."

As Brand read these last words a quick flush darkened his face, his
lips twitched angrily and with a sudden access of wrath he was about
to tear the sheet into strips, when his eye caught the next sentence
and his countenance paled again as quickly as it had flushed. "And it
is my opinion," the letter went on, "that she also is not entirely
ignorant on that question."

Brand half rose, crushing the letter in his hand. "Blackguard! I'll
read no more of his scurrilous stuff!" he exclaimed with angry
emphasis. But the next instant he hesitated, glanced about the room
with a sort of dazed uncertainty, then sank into the chair and resumed
the letter.

"As you will, doubtless, have learned when you read this, I
have done what I told you I would about that municipal art
commission affair. You didn't believe I knew enough to carry
the thing through successfully. But you know better now. I
hope it will convince you that when I make--a suggestion, I
mean it and that you'd better follow my advice unless you
are willing to take the consequences. That bargaining you
did with Flaherty was so idiotic that I lost all patience
with you. If you had been willing to wait a while, a year or
so, you could have got the position in a perfectly
honorable way. But, no! you must have it right now, in order
to further your own selfish ends. And so you reach out and
snatch it, just as you try to grasp ruthlessly whatever you
need or desire for your own purposes. And, as usual, you
left the mark of your pitchy fingers. Your soul is so
blackly selfish, Felix Brand, that it oozes corruption out
of your very finger-ends and contaminates whatever you
touch.

"I am much interested in your mother and sister, and I want
them to be happy. Unless you do for them more of what it is
in your power to do, as I told you before, there will be
consequences--I don't know what, just yet, bu