The tenacity with which Mr. King adhered to the belief in, and solicitude for, a good name, would have been touching had it not been noticeable to the least observant that his theory was, that the custody of that desirable belonging was vested entirely in the female members of a family. Nothing short of the most austere morals could preserve the family 'scutcheon if he was contemplating one side. Nothing short of a long-continued, open, varied, and obtrusive dishonesty and profligacy of a male member could even dull its lustre. It was a comfortable code for a part of its adherents. Had his poor, colorless, inane wife ever dared to deviate from the beaten path of social observance, Mr. King would have talked about and felt that "his honor" was tarnished. Were he to follow far less strictly the code, he would not only be sure that his own honor was intact, but if any one were to suggest to him the contrary, or that he was compromising her honor, he would have looked upon that person as lacking in what he was pleased to call "common horse-sense." He was in no manner a hypocrite. His sincerity was undoubted. He followed the beaten track. Was it not the masculine reason and logic of the ages, and was not that final? Was not all other reason and logic merely a spurious emotionalism? morbid? unwholesome? irrational? No one would gainsay that unless it were a lunatic or a woman, which was much the same thing--and since the opinion of neither of these was valuable, why discuss or waste time with them? That was Mr. King's point of view, and he was of the opinion that he had a pretty good voting majority with him, and a voting majority was the measure of value and ethics with Representative King--when the voting majority was on his side. When the last awful agony came to poor little Ettie Berton, and she yielded up, in pathetic terror and reluctant despair, the life which had been moulded for her with such a result almost as inevitable as the death itself, a wave of tenderness and remorse swept over her father. He buried his face in the pillow beside the poor, pretty, weak, white face that would win favor and praise by its cheerful ready acquiescence no more, and wept aloud. This impressed Representative King as reasonable enough, under all the circumstances, but when Ettie's father intimated later to Francis that he had been to blame, and that, perhaps, after all, Ettie _was_ only the legitimate result of her training and the social and legal conditions which he had helped to make and sustain, Representative King curled his lip scornfully and remarked that in his opinion Tom Berton never could be relied on to be anything but a damned fool? In the long run. He was a splendid "starter." Always opened up well in any line; but unless someone else held the reins after that the devil would be to pay and no mistake.