side. I had ‘let them in,’ so that when you angrily dismissed me, I still had daily and hourly information of what was going on. You found out that the bank’s securities had been sold for less than they were worth, and you set to work to repair the wrong. You couldn’t cancel the sales that had been made, but you could and did pay your own money into the bank to make good what you regarded as the defalcations. That made it easy for me. I went to my judge—the one I owned—and laid before him the fact that you were handling the bank’s assets without a shadow of legal authority; that you had dismissed me—the receiver’s counsel and expert accountant—upon discovering that I knew of defalcations, and all the rest of it. You know that part of the story, for you suffered from it. To save your brother, you had sacrificed large sums of money. When that failed and you found that either he or you must go to prison for these defalcations, you decided to sacrifice your liberty and your reputation in order to save him and his wife and daughters. You refused to defend yourself. I thought your plan was to get a stay, give bail, and skip it. But you had the disadvantage of having a moral character, so you stood your hand and were sent to prison. Your brother, having no moral character, let you do this thing and pretended great grief over your dishonesty and perfidy. But he had learned the business by that time, and so he got away with the swag, and with the reputation of a man of truly Roman virtue who suffered acutely over the misbehaviour of his ‘black sheep’ brother. What a farce it all is anyhow—life, I mean—if one tries to take it seriously! Let me have a little brandy, please! I’m growing very faint.” The brandy did its appointed work of stimulation, and presently Campbell resumed:— “I don’t in the least understand why you should care for your brother, but, as you do, it may gratify you to know that he is leading a quiet life of luxury in the country on the Hudson. He is a comfortably rich man; for he kept the money he got out of the bank and invested it prudently—a thing I never could do when I had money. He highly disapproved of me, of course; but when I quitted the Southern army and went North—” “When you deserted, you mean.” “Yes, if you look at it in that way—he used his influence to get me my present commission. That was cheaper than supporting me, which he must otherwise have done, for I had lost and squandered everything. That brings me to what I really want to talk to you about. I have a daughter somewhere in the South, if she is still alive. She was captured a few months ago during an effort on the part of—well, never mind whom—to smuggle her through the lines into the South, where she has some relatives, though I don’t believe she knows who they are. It doesn’t matter. They say I’ve persecuted the girl—and I suppose in a way I have.