"I don't understand you," said Aylmer, quietly. "The public prints have made it quite evident that you're not fit for the society of decent men, if that is what you mean." "No!" snarled Landon. "It isn't what I mean. What I mean is that that blackguard who's just left us, curse him! has won all round. He took my wife from me and now he's taken my reputation, my honor, and he's gone far to take every friend I have. But by the Lord who made me, Jack, I thought that you might be left with some sense of justice!" "Justice?" Aylmer's voice made an echo to Landon's. "Justice?" he repeated. "You got that, or less than that in most men's opinion, in the divorce court." "I didn't!" said Landon, fiercely. "Ah, they made a pretty story of it! The blackguard who knocked his wife about, who thrashed his child, who took his wife's allowance and flung it under a dunghill of drink and devilry. That was me! Who gave evidence? The wife herself, who has since gone into a lunatic asylum. Servants who were bought with that old miser's gold. The man who wanted her--Despard!" In spite of himself Aylmer gave an almost imperceptible quiver of surprise. Landon laughed again. "Does that touch you?" he cried. "He wouldn't tell you that. Not of how he schemed, and laid traps, and sunk pitfalls for me, to catch me, as I was caught. I'm no saint, Lord knows, but I've never sunk to that. I've had my game and paid my price, but, by God, I've never cheated!" Aylmer's eyes still met his with level contempt. "I know Despard, I've known him since boyhood," he answered. "He does not do these things." Landon shrugged his shoulders. "Of course! I'm down and you're all stamping me into the mud, lower and lower. You've all taken the accepted view, and when I cry out against it I'm told I've had my chance. So I did, but it was never a fair one." "You have still six months in which to give your version to the King's Proctor if you have any new facts to support your statement," said Aylmer, coldly. "Facts! How am I to get the benefit of facts when the other side can manufacture answers for them with a dollar for my every penny? I've supplied 'facts' to the King's Proctor till I'm sick of the sight of his office paper assuring me that he has 'no evidence to justify my contentions.' I can give facts enough. It's a hearing I want--an impartial hearing!" Aylmer shook his head. "You got it," he said doggedly. "You got it!" Landon rapped his stick upon the pavement. "I tell you I didn't!" he cried. "I tell you that I could tell you things that would prove to you--yes, prove--that the whole job was got up by that scoundrel who's just left us--got up by him to steal my wife from me. I ask you to hear me; I appeal to you to listen to my side; I appeal to your sense of justice!" Aylmer turned up the street. "If you think there is anything to be gained by it, say on!" he answered. "You can walk with me as far as my quarters."