“Zounds! Leonard, I have told you already that morally judging this question I hold the Decalogue as a finality!” And with these words the judge rose to his feet. It was evident he had no more to say on the subject, and Leonard bid him “good-afternoon” and left the house. There had been throughout the interview a want of sympathy in the judge’s manner that insinuated suspicion, or at least uncertainty, and Leonard was pained and offended by it. Judge Bloommaert had known him intimately, yet he had permitted the evil tongue of a stranger to influence his own experience. Angry tears rose unconsciously to his eyes, and he asked himself what did it profit a man to be truthful and generous, if any dastardly liar could smear and cancel the noblest record? He walked up the Bowling Green with a burning heart, but Sappha had whispered her promise to be near the statue; and he soon saw the flutter of her white gown as she came to meet him. They entered the enclosure and sat down on a bench facing that heroic representation of Washington, which, made of wood, shaped and coloured to imitate the rosiest glow of life, was the best artistic effort New York was capable of one hundred years ago.[3] But even if Sappha and Leonard had been conscious of its artistic defects, they cared little for them at that hour. Their own affairs were too urgent, too perilously near to trouble again. And though Sappha was full of sympathy and quite determined to uphold Leonard in all he had done and was going to do, yet she at once gave vent to her womanish fears in the essentially provoking query: “Oh, Leonard, why did you not show yourself in the city the last three days? You might have known people would say you were afraid of that dreadful man.” “Dear Sappha!” he answered, “will you, too, oblige me to explain that my absence from my usual haunts the last three days was quite accidental; you wanted me to go to Nassau Street with you Thursday, and your grandmother kept us all day. You wanted me to go to the Semple house with you Friday, and Annette and Achille kept us all day. This morning my lawyer brought to the hotel a number of papers and accounts, and it was noon before we had reviewed them. Then we had a meal together, and afterwards I came to you. How could I imagine Gilson’s unmerited abuse of me? And it seems I had no friend or acquaintance willing to take the trouble to tell me how the man was slandering me behind my back--everything, and every one, was against me.” “Father told you as soon as he heard the scandal.” “Yes, but not very kindly. There was a taste of doubt in all he said. And he would give me no positive straight-forward advice. I feel completely at sea as regards his wishes. I am going this evening to talk the matter over with Achille.” “Oh, no! Oh, no! Achille will urge you to fight the low creature. I cannot bear that, Leonard.” “There is not the least danger. Gilson would be a child in my hands.”