"Professional! that's what the doctors say when they refuse to save your life because they don't want to be discourteous to a fellow practitioner," answered Carroll. "Well, if the life of the man I loved was at stake I wouldn't wait for somebody to come and hire me to defend him!" "Carroll!" cried Silvia. "Silvia!" she retorted. "Will your highness deign to accept employment if it is offered you by his family?" "Oh, Carroll, I can't let you drum up business----" "You should be shaken, Silvia," her friend answered. "Of course everybody in the country knows that you live in daily fear of the poorhouse, and keep an advertising bureau busy trying to find you employment! However, I suspected you would make these silly objections, so I told Frank Earl yesterday that he ought to move heaven and earth to get you to defend his brother. He nearly fell on my neck, and he is now giving me absent treatment or holding a thought that I may succeed in making you see that you could do more for the doctor than any other New York lawyer." "That isn't true, Carroll," she said. "I wish it were, but it isn't, and I haven't been able to think of any one that I want to see take up his defense." "Naturally, because you know you ought to do it yourself. Now listen to me." Miss Renner put her hands on Silvia's shoulders. "We haven't known each other long, but it doesn't follow that we don't know each other well. If John Earl were my brother I should give you no peace until you promised to defend him, not alone because you have the requisite skill as an attorney, but because you would give this case the devotion, the insight, that are not to be bought with money. Now you know my terms; shall I go to the district attorney?" Silvia kissed her impulsively. "Yes, dear; go--go at once!" Her eyes filled and her exquisite voice quivered with the strain of the emotion she could no longer conceal. "Oh, Carroll, I'm glad to have you now; come back to me afterward and tell me all about it!" CHAPTER XVII THE ARREST OF DR. JOHN EARL Early the next morning Dr. John Earl was arrested for the murder of Emma Bell and was remanded by the magistrate to The Tombs without bail to await the action of the grand jury, which was soon to convene. Both he and his family had foreseen the event, and he had made the necessary arrangements for the conduct of his business. Humiliating as his arrest was, they all bore it with Spartan courage, and prepared to ransack the earth, if need be, to establish his innocence.