"But Wilkinson could have you disbarred if he were alive, you must know that," she insisted hopelessly. "Never!" he answered defiantly. "He can't fool the courts. And some day I'm going to climb back ... even if I have to crawl there on my hands and knees." "I'd like to help you win your place back in the world," she spoke up, remembering his kindness to her, then she stopped, her face flushing with the sudden realisation which was forcing itself upon her, that who was she to stand beside any man in his fight against the world, she, a creature rejected by everyone, penniless, with a fight of her own on her hands? "I shouldn't have said this," she went on by way of explanation. "I'm rather a weak ally to"--she paused to push back a stray lock that the wind insisted upon blowing in her face, but in reality it was to brush away the tears that clung to her eyelids. Beekman saw this, and his heart went out to her, for he knew that hard as was his lot, hers must be infinitely harder. "It wouldn't have been so," presently she continued. "But there was no one to care for me--no one to care what became of me. I was a silly, vain creature like thousands of others...." For some time the conversation held to this strain. At last the girl put out her hand and said with a faint little smile on her lips: "Governor Beekman--for I must still call you so--it looks like a case of down and out for both of us. If you'll give me your address, I'll give you mine. One can never tell, you know...." "That's very true," he answered sadly, and proceeded to scribble his name and address on a leaf of his note book, tore out the leaf and passed it over to her; then scribbling her address, as she repeated it, upon another leaf, he added with genuine sincerity: "If I can ever be of service to you, Miss Braine, don't hesitate to call upon me." He took the hand which she gave him, and once more their ways parted. The next morning Beekman's superior--Beekman had obtained a job with the Title Company, after he had been frozen out of his law practice--called him into the inside office. "I'm sorry to tell you," he began, "it's not personal with me at all, but the company have given me orders to ask you to resign...." "I knew they would," said Beekman, pocketing his salary. "I expect to spend the rest of my natural life in resignation. I've resigned from six positions now, and am being kicked out of the seventh. I bear no malice to anybody except the man above.... If he's alive, I hope to get him one of these days; if he isn't," he smiled genially, "why, he's getting his reward right now." The hounding of Beekman had become an easy matter. Once driven out of independent business and shunned by people of his kind, he was forced to apply for salaried positions. After that the story was always the same, except that each time he kept asking lower and lower wages, getting them until he was turned off. And he was always turned off--no longer was his resignation requested.