“I know why you want to be re-elected town treasurer,” went on the Squire. “You want to cover up the fact that you’re an embezzler of almost forty thousand dollars of the town’s funds-----Oh, I know what you are going to say,” he cried, holding up his hand; “you are going to say that you’ve only hired this money on town’s notes and are going to pay it back, and that if you can be re-elected no one will be the wiser. You are begging for time, Judge. But I tell you”--he stood up and pounded the table--“you have stolen that money! You cannot pay it back. It’s no use for you to deceive me by stories. Every dollar of property you have in the world is mortgaged for every cent it is worth, and that money and the money you have stolen from this town have gone--gone down into that hole of speculation, to the side of which King Bradish led with his devilish arts and promises. You’re ruined, Judge Willard, you’re ruined--and God only knows how many other poor people you will drag down with you in this town--people whose little capital is all in your hands! I curse Bradish, first, for I believe if it hadn’t been for him no Willard would have turned out of the straight path his ancestors always followed. But I curse you, Judge Willard, for having allowed yourself to be inveigled into dishonesty and the betrayal of the great trust that has been placed in your hands. You have called me various names in the past,” he went on, his eyes flashing and the passionate anger of the Look temperament getting the better of his self-control; “I simply want to say to you now that you”--he leaned forward, supporting himself by his knuckles on the table--“are as miserable a thief as I ever knew. For when you fall--a man trusted by all--you have taken away Palermo’s strongest prop of good example from the poor, weak devils who are trying to be honest in their poverty.” For a long time the two men looked at each other, the Squire stern and angry, the Judge writhing in his self-abasement. Then the old man’s secret passed from his desperate clinch on it. He trembled like a leaf, but there was a certain air of relief in his confession and appeal.