"Well, I wouldn't; you've done enough," the doctor commented roughly. "You call it a mistake, but I call it blind stupidity, worse than many crimes. Mary is worth three of Agnes, to begin with; but it would be just as bad if she were a doll or a dolt. Any fellow out of swaddling-clothes, who has brains in his body, and isn't made of wood, ought to know that passion is as hard a fact as hunger, and no more to be left out of account. You were bound to know the chances were that it would have to be reckoned with, first or last, and you deliberately took the risk of wrecking two women's lives. I don't say anything about your own; you richly deserve all you got, and all that's coming to you. If law could be made to conform to abstract justice, it would rank your offence worse than many for which men pay behind bars." He went out abruptly, and after a few minutes returned with Agnes, who came in lingering, and apparently unwilling. "Here, Agnes, I am going out," he said. "I've been giving this young man my opinion of him, and haven't any more time to waste. You can tell him what you think of him, and send him off." He went out, and banged the door after him. Agnes leaned against it, and stood there downcast and perfectly still. Windham sat sunk together, as the doctor had left him, waiting for her to speak. But she did not, and after a while he got up and stood by the high desk, looking at her. Finally he spoke low: "Are you going to scold me, too? Mary has discarded me, and your uncle says I am a miserable sinner, and ought to be in the penitentiary. I don't deny it; but if I went there it would be for your sake. Do you condemn me, too? Have you no mercy for me?" A flush spread slowly over her pale face. Then she replied softly: "No, I have no right. I am no better than you." Two or three hours later Dr. Saxon sat at his desk, when Agnes entered and came silently and stood beside him. He did not look up, but asked quietly: "Well, have you packed him off?" "No," she answered under her breath; "you know I haven't." He smiled up at her. This gruff old man had a rare smile on occasion for those he liked. And he said: "Well, he isn't the worst they make; he's got spirit, and he can take a drubbing, too, when it's deserved. I tried him pretty well. Didn't I fire into him, though, hot shot!" He fairly grinned at the recollection. "I had to, you know, to keep myself in countenance. I suppose I said rather more than I meant--but don't you tell him so." She smiled. "I have told him so already; I told him you didn't mean a word you said." "You presumptuous baggage!" The doctor scowled now. "Then you told him a tremendous fib. I meant a deal of it. Well, he'll get his deserts yet, if he gets you, you deceiving minx. I told him one thing that was true enough, anyway"--he smiled broadly again--"I told him Mary was worth half a dozen of you." Agnes turned grave, and put down her head so that she hid her face.