“If I am, it is not to sweep her influence away, but to help it. Have mercy on her boy! Oh, James, you have been hard upon him: you are a good man, but you have been hard upon him. Why did you expose him the other day about that money? There might be a hundred reasons that you never stopped to hear. James, I am in Mary’s place; and what she would have done I am doubly bound to do. Don’t ruin her boy. Don’t, for God’s sake, James, even if your anger is just, destroy her boy!” He rose up and walked about the room in his way, laughing at intervals that hard, dry, little laugh, which was his signal of distress. “It shows what you think of me,” he said, “that you bid me not to ruin him. What’s the meaning of that accursed bit of paper lying there? It means that I have adopted the lie and the guilt to save him. I have said it was all right--not for his sake--but to save an open shame.” “Ah, James! for his sake too.” He put his arm round her, and bent his head down upon her shoulder for a moment. She felt his heart beating like a loud, hard piece of machinery, thumping and labouring in his breast; and she thought she divined the pain that was in him, forcing all his organs into such fierce movement. And so she did, in fact; but who can altogether understand the bitterness in another’s heart? He sat down again after a while, and said-- “Send for him--he must answer for himself.” “I will have to go and see to the people who are leaving, James; you ought to come too.” “I can’t, it is impossible.” “Then Archie must stay to take your place. He has done very well, as well as any boy could have done. He must back me up, and help me to see all the people away.”