Halleck burst into a harsh laugh, and rose from his chair: “Ah, there you abdicate the judicial function! Principles, self-respect! Against _that_? Don't you suppose I was approached _through_ my principles and self-respect? Why, the Devil always takes a man on the very highest plane. He knows all about our principles and self-respect, and what they're made of. How the noblest and purest attributes of our nature, with which we trap each other so easily, must amuse him! Pity, rectitude, moral indignation, a blameless life,--he knows that they're all instruments for him. No, sir! No more principles and self-respect for me,--I've had enough of them; there's nothing for me but to run, and that's what I'm going to do. But you're quite right about the other thing, Atherton, and I give you a beggar's thanks for telling me that my trouble isn't mine alone, and I've no right to confide it to you. It is mine in the sense that no other soul is defiled with the knowledge of it, and I'm glad you saved me from the ghastly profanation, the sacrilege, of telling it. I was sneaking round for your sympathy; I did want somehow to shift the responsibility on to you; to get you--God help me!--to flatter me out of my wholesome fear and contempt of myself. Well! That's past, now, and--Good night!” He abruptly turned away from Atherton and swung himself on his cane toward the door. Atherton took up his hat and coat. “I'll walk home with you,” he said. “All right,” returned Halleck, listlessly. “How soon shall you go?” asked the lawyer, when they were in the street. “Oh, there's a ship sailing from New York next week,” said Halleck, in the same tone of weary indifference. “I shall go in that.” They talked desultorily of other things. When they came to the foot of Clover Street, Halleck plucked his hand out of Atherton's arm. “I'm going up through here!” he said, with sullen obstinacy. “Better not,” returned his friend, quietly. “Will it hurt her if I stop to look at the outside of the house where she lives?” “It will hurt you,” said Atherton. “I don't wish to spare myself!” retorted Halleck. He shook off the touch that Atherton had laid upon his shoulder, and started up the hill; the other overtook him, and, like a man who has attempted to rule a drunkard by thwarting his freak, and then hopes to accomplish his end by humoring it, he passed his arm through Halleck's again, and went with him. But when they came to the house, Halleck did not stop; he did not even look at it; but Atherton felt the deep shudder that passed through him.