“Trouble the devil!” Arthur retorted, and shook off his hand. “You have ruined the bank,” he continued, bitterly, but with less violence, “and ruined your father and ruined me. I hope you are content. You have been thorough, if it’s any satisfaction to you. And some day I shall know why you’ve done it. For your honesty and your clean hands, they don’t weigh a curse with me. You’re playing your own game, and if I come to know what it is, I’ll spoil it yet, d—n you!” “I don’t mind how much you curse me, if you will come,” Clement answered, patiently. “It’s the only thing to be done, and when you think it over in cold blood, you’ll see that. Come, man, and put a bold face on it. It is the brave game and the only game. Face it out now.” Arthur looked away, his handsome face sullen. He was striving with his passions, battling with the maddening sense of defeat. He saw, as plainly as Clement, that the latter’s advice was good, but to take it and to go with him, to bear for many hours the sense of his presence and the consciousness of his scorn, his gorge rose at the thought. Yet, what other course was open to him? What was he going to do? He had little money with him, and he saw but two alternatives: to blow out his brains, or to go, hat in hand, and seek employment at the brokers’ where he was known. He had no real thought of the former alternative—life ran strong in him and he was sanguine; and the latter meant the overthrow of all his plans, and a severance, final and complete, from Ovington’s. His lot thenceforth would, he suspected, be that of a man who had “crossed the fight,” done something dubious, put himself outside the pale. Whereas if he went with Clement now, humiliation would indeed be his. But he would still be himself, and with his qualities he might live it down, and in the end lose nothing. So at last, “Go on,” he said, sulkily. “Have it your own way. At any rate, I may spoil your game!” He shut his eyes to Clement’s generosity. If he gave a thought to it at all, he fancied that he had some purpose to serve, some axe of his own to grind.