May was not the kind of person that could be put off with a general answer, and I was glad to give her the inside story. So I told her the circumstances of the case. "It was blackmail and robbery--the judge was waiting to be bought. These rats stood between us and what we had a perfect right to do. There's hardly a business man in this city who, under the circumstances, would not have done what we did!" "I don't believe that!" May exclaimed in her sharp, decisive little way. She sat looking at me rather sternly with the same look on her face that I had remembered for twenty years. And the next thing that she said was pretty much what I thought she was going to say:-- "Van, you are always a great hand to think what you want to believe is the only thing to believe! You know that!" She smiled unconsciously, with the little ironical ripple which I knew so well, and I smiled, too. I couldn't help myself. We both seemed to have gone back to the old boy and girl days. But I was angry, as well, and began to defend myself. "No," she interrupted. "It isn't a mite of use for you to bluster and get angry, Van. I don't trust you! I haven't for some time. I have been worried for Will. Don't you let him mix himself up in your ways of doing things, Van Harrington!" "If he is so terribly precious," I said hotly, "I guess you had better take him back to Jasonville." "Maybe I shall," she answered quietly. "I'd take him to the meanest little place in creation rather than know he had done any such thing as you say you have done!" We were both pretty angry by this time, and yet we both smiled. She was such a snappy, strong little woman--I admired her all the time she was making me angry! Somehow it brought back all that time long ago when I had thought the world began and ended with her. We had never been so near each other since. And I think she felt somewhat in the same way. "Well," I said at last, "I am not going to fight this thing out with you, May, or with any other woman. I have too much else on hand. I am answerable for all I do or have done. If you and Will don't like my company, why, we have got to do without you." I wished I hadn't been so small as to make that fling. She flashed a look at me out of her eyes that brought me to my senses in a moment. I took her by the shoulders. "See here, May, we mustn't quarrel. Let's all hang together in this, as in other things. You women don't know what business means." She smiled back into my eyes and retorted, "It seems to be just as well we don't!" In a moment more she added: "But you mustn't think that I can make up like this. You and I don't look at things in the same way." "Never did!" I said dryly. "At any rate, you had better go up now and look after Sarah. She can't keep on this way. She's got to look at this more sensibly. She isn't like you, May!" "No," May retorted, "she isn't! But this hurts her, too. Perhaps she cares more what folks _say_ than I do. And she believes in her religion, Van."