“No,” said Atherton, keeping the same scrutiny of Halleck's face which he had bent upon him throughout, but seeming now to hear his thoughts rather than his words. “I knew that you would have some supreme motive; and if I have pretended to approve your scheme on the reasons you have given me, I haven't dealt honestly with you. But perhaps a little dishonesty is the best thing under the circumstances. You haven't told me your real motive, and I can't ask it.” “But you imagine it?” “Yes.” “And what do you imagine? That I have been disappointed in love? That I have been rejected? That the girl who had accepted me has broken her engagement? Something of that sort?” demanded Halleck, scornfully. Atherton did not answer. “Oh, how far you are from the truth! How blest and proud and happy I should be if it were the truth!” He looked into his friend's eyes, and added bitterly: “You're not curious, Atherton; you don't ask me what my trouble really is! Do you wish me to tell you what it is without asking?” Atherton kept turning a pencil end for end between his fingers, while a compassionate smile slightly curved his lips. “No,” he said, finally, “I think you had better not tell me your trouble. I can believe very well without knowing it that it's serious--” “Oh, tragic!” said Halleck, self-contemptuously. “But I doubt if it would help you to tell it. I've too much respect for your good sense to suppose that it's an unreality; and I suspect that confession would only weaken you. If you told me, you would feel that you had made me a partner in your responsibility, and you would be tempted to leave the struggle to me. If you're battling with some temptation, some self-betrayal, you must make the fight alone: you would only turn to an ally to be flattered into disbelief of your danger or your culpability.” Halleck assented with a slight nod to each point that the lawyer made. “You're right,” he said, “but a man of your subtlety can't pretend that he doesn't know what the trouble is in such a simple case as mine.” “I don't know anything certainly,” returned Atherton, “and as far as I can I refuse to imagine anything. If your trouble concerns some one besides yourself,--and no great trouble can concern one man alone,--you've no right to tell it.” “Another Daniel come to judgment!” “You must trust to your principles, your self-respect, to keep you right--”