Miss Ritter had been on the case a very short time before he began to make ardent love to her. She was an extremely pretty girl, two years his senior, and, I am convinced, a most worthy and exemplary young woman. She became infatuated with the young man. He asked her to marry him. (Permit me to digress for a moment in order to state that while Courtney Thane was in his freshman year at college his father was obliged to pay out quite a large sum of money to a chorus-girl with whom, it appears, he had become involved.) To make a long story short, our client, trusting implicitly to his honour and submitting to the ardour of their joint passion, anticipated the marriage ceremony with serious results to herself. When she discovered that he had no intention of marrying her, she attempted suicide. Her mother, on learning the truth, went to Thane's parents and pleaded for the righting of the wrong. Howard Thane had, by this time, lost all patience with his son. He refused to have anything to do with the matter. The young man's mother ordered Miss Ritter's mother out of the apartment and threatened to have her arrested for blackmail. Shortly after this episode, we were consulted by Mrs. Ritter, much against the wishes of her daughter, who shrank from the notoriety and the disgrace of a lawsuit. The elder Thane was adamant in his decision that his son should marry the girl, who, he was fair enough to admit, was a young woman of very superior character and who, he was convinced, had been basely deceived. The mother, on the other hand, was relentlessly opposed to the sacrifice of her son. We took the matter to court. On the morning of the first day of the trial, before the opening of court, the defendant's counsel came to us with a proposition. They offered to settle out of court for twenty-five thousand dollars. In the end, we accepted fifty thousand, and the case was dismissed. Afterwards counsel for the other side informed us that the elder Thane turned his son out of his home and refused to have anything more to do with him. I understand the young man went to Europe, where he subsisted on an allowance provided by his mother. Thane, senior, died shortly after this. Our client, I am pained to say, died with her babe in childbirth. You may be interested to know, my dear niece, that Mrs. Thane married soon after her husband's death. Her second husband was a young French nobleman, many years her junior. He was killed in the war, I think at Verdun. I understand she is now living in this city. Her present name escapes me, but I know that her widowhood has been made endurable by a legacy which happens to be one in name only. In other words, he left her the title of Countess. If I can be of any further service to you, my dear niece, pray do not hesitate to call upon me. Believe me to be...etc., etc.