There’s no doubt at all that Bruce felt himself abominably ill used. He hadn’t transgressed his own code in telling Judy the obligation her mother had saddled her with. He considered, no doubt, that he was acting magnanimously in forgetting, so to speak, Judy’s adventure with Bill. He must, of course, have been passionately desirous of her or he wouldn’t have done that. But there was a hotter fuel for his anger than all this came to, I think. This was the knowledge that in another particular he had transgressed his code. It was his hatred of his cousin that had betrayed him into it. One can imagine that this hatred must have been latent for years. He’d spoken of him to me that morning as an undisciplined anarchist who had done what he liked, had what he wanted. The care-free grasshopper--don’t you see?--viewed by the laborious ant and never overtaken by the winter. His discovery, early that morning, that Bill had taken Judy away from him had driven him to an act that demolished his own self-righteousness. As I said before, I really pitied him when I understood. That wasn’t my feeling at the present moment, though. His face had gone livid with anger under the lash of the old woman’s last words. He sprang to his feet. “Very well,” he said. “I can’t dispute your right to discharge the obligation in that way. But that’s not going to be the end of it. If your granddaughter wants to marry my cousin, she’ll have to marry a proclaimed thief. He may never be sent to jail for what he’s done. That decision’s in your hands too, I suppose. But the story of it shall follow him as long as he lives.” There was a furious retort on the old woman’s lips, but it was checked by the quiet tones of old Mr. Smith. “Augusta,” he said (I’d never heard her addressed by that name before, and it made me jump), “have I your permission to take a hand?” She nodded without a word, and sank back with a sigh into her chair. Old Eagle-Eye turned to Bruce. “Please sit down again,” he said persuasively. “I don’t think we need be violent about this. The suggestion I wish to make is that you make a beginning at once and tell us the story now. I’ve heard no account of the robbery myself, and I don’t think Mrs. Corbin has. If there really is a clear case against your cousin, we’d like to hear it.” Disarming as his voice was, I don’t know that Applebury would have yielded if the old man hadn’t added, “Of course you’d want to tell it, at least for once, in the presence of any of us who might have contributory testimony of our own to offer.” “I’m not afraid of any contributory testimony,” Bruce said. “Yes, I’ll be glad to tell it.”