“Very well, Hammond,” Hugh arose wearily from his chair, “I’m not going to quarrel with you,” he informed. “I’m sorry to lose your friendship, but as long as you feel the way you do—perhaps it’s just as well.” “Benton, I’m going to be candid with you, and tell you that I intend offering my services to Howard and Mrs. Benton. The boy will need help and I’m going to stand by him,” Hammond announced as he stood up to leave. “Griggs,” he said to the waiting butler when he reached the hall, “will you kindly ask Mrs. Benton to see me for a few moments? Tell her I wish to speak to her on a matter of great importance.” “Mrs. Benton will be with you directly, sir.” Griggs returned with the message almost immediately. “Will you wait here?” he asked, indicating Marjorie’s morning room as he opened the door. Hammond stood gazing out of the window when the mother of Howard entered. She held out her hand. “You wish to see me, Mr. Hammond?” she murmured politely, though the paleness of her face, the distraught manner showed plainly how pain had been with her through the hours. She added, hesitatingly: “I think I know why. But after the events of last night, and this morning, don’t you think Hugh could have been a little more considerate, and at least had waited a day before sending his attorney to me?” “Mr. Benton didn’t send me at all, Mrs. Benton—I’ve come of my own accord.” “But I don’t understand. You’ve always been Hugh’s attorney, so naturally I thought he had consulted you, and Howard told me you were with him—last night.” Her lips quivered pitifully over the last two words. Hammond nodded. “Yes—I was with him last night, and I have been closeted with him in the library for the past half hour or so, just long enough for me to refuse to act as his attorney in the future.” Marjorie’s astonishment was great as she heard him and saw the tightening of the lips under the grizzled mustache. “Why, Mr. Hammond, you’ve been friends for years! Have you—have—you—quarreled?” she queried. “We haven’t exactly quarreled, Mrs. Benton, but we can’t agree on certain points, so——” But to the mother, with thought now only for the son she loved, such a contingency could only take on the proportions of a catastrophe. She knew the reputation held by John Hammond. For years, since he had been her husband’s attorney she had been told of his legal prowess, and had come to believe that anything he undertook of that nature could mean only triumph for his client. All the hours since the painful scene in the library she had hugged to her breast the thought that Howard would be defended by this cleverest of lawyers, and the outcome was to her a foregone conclusion. She caught her breath painfully as she realized now that Howard might, through some nonsensical quarrel of his father’s, be denied the lawyer’s protection. She caught at his sleeve with an appealing gesture.