Luke was in no mood to argue with him then, but went back to his chambers, dined with his father, and then sat up half the night studying the brief, not with the idea of being for the prosecution, but so as to know how Cyril Mallow stood. It was a long brief, and terrible in its array of charges against Sage's husband. As he read on, Luke found that the executors of Cyril's partner, the late Mr Walker, were determined upon punishing him who had wrought his ruin. The wine business had been a good and very lucrative one until Mr Walker had been tempted into taking a partner, whose capital had not been needed, the object really being to find a junior who would relieve the senior from the greater part of the anxiety and work. Cyril then had been received into the partnership, and a great deal of the management had after a short time been left to him, a position of which he took advantage to gamble upon the Stock Exchange with the large sums of money passing through their hands, with just such success as might have been expected, and the discovery that Cyril had involved the firm in bankruptcy broke Mr Walker's heart, the old man dying within a week of the schedule being filed. Worse was behind: the executors charged Cyril with having forged his partner's name to bills, whereon he had raised money, signing not merely the name of the firm, but his own and his partner's name, upon the strength of which money had been advanced by two bill discounters, both of whom were eager to have him punished. In short, the more Luke Ross studied, the more he found that the black roll of iniquity was unfolding itself, so that at last he threw down the brief, heartsick with disgust and misery, feeling as he did that if half, nay, a tithe of that which was charged against Cyril were true, no matter who conducted prosecution or defence, the jury was certain to convict him of downright forgery and swindling, and seven or ten years' penal servitude would be his sentence. It needed no dull, cheerless morning for Luke's spirits to be at the lowest ebb when he met his father at breakfast, the old man looking very weak, careworn, and troubled, as they sat over the barely-tasted meal. Luke hardly spoke, but sat there thinking that he would make a fresh appeal to Mr Swift to relieve him of so terrible a charge, and expecting each moment that his father would again implore him to retire from the prosecution and take up the defence. At last the old man spoke. "I've been lying awake all night, thinking about that, my boy," he said, "and I'm very, very sorry." "Father," said Luke, "it seems almost more than one can bear." "I said to myself that my boy was too noble not to forgive one who had done wrong to him in the past, and I said, too, that it would be a fine thing for him to show people how he was ready to go and fight on his old rival's behalf." "And I will, father, or retire from the case altogether," said Luke, eagerly.