urs. 'Twill be mine one day."

"You have no right to accuse me of thoughts that do not occur to men of
honour," I replied. "I am slower to anger than I once was, but I give
you warning now. Do you know that you will ruin your father in another
year and you continue?"

He gave me no answer. I reached for the ledger, and turning the pages,
called off to him the sums he had spent.

"Oh, have done, d--n it!" he cried, when I was not a third through. "Are
you or are you not to give me the money?"

"And you are to spend it upon an actress?" I should have called her by a
worse name.

"Actress!" he shouted. "Have you seen her in The Orphan? My soul, she
is a divinity!" Then he shifted suddenly to whining and cringing. "I am
ruined outright, Richard, if I do not get it."

Abjectly he confessed the situation, which had in it enough material
for a scandal to set the town wagging for a month. And the weight of it
would fall; as I well knew, upon those who deserved it least.

"I will lend you the money, or, rather, will pay it for you," I said, at
last. For I was not so foolish as to put it into his hands. "You shall
have the sum under certain conditions."

He agreed to them before they were out of my mouth, and swore in a dozen
ways that he would repay me every farthing. He was heartily tired of the
creature, and, true to his nature, afraid of her. That night when the
play was over I went to her lodging, and after a scene too distressing
to dwell upon, bought her off.

I sat with Mr. Swain many an hour that spring, with Patty sewing at the
window open to the garden. Often, as we talked, unnoticed by her father
she would drop her work and the tears glisten in her eyes. For the
barrister's voice was not as strong as it once was, and the cold would
not seem to lift from his chest. So this able man, who might have sat
in the seats of Maryland's high reward, was stricken when he was needed
most.

He was permitted two visitors a day: now 'twas Mr. Carroll and Colonel
Lloyd, again Colonel Tilghman and Captain Clapsaddle, or Mr. Yaca and
Mr. Bordley. The gentlemen took turns, and never was their business so
pressing that they missed their hour. Mr. Swain read all the prints, and
in his easier days would dictate to me his views for the committee, or
a letter signed Brutes for Mr. Green to put in the Gazette. So I became
his mouthpiece at the meetings, and learned to formulate my thoughts and
to speak clearly.

For fear of conf