"How so? I see varry little connection," he said suspiciously. "There's this connection--that while you speak with some freedom of what I do, you are quite willing to take advantage of it when it serves your turn." "'Advantage,' Harrison?" he said slowly. "Of the advertisement _Martin Renard_ gives you. I must point out that you condone a thing when you accept the benefit of it. Either you shouldn't have come to me at all, or you should deny yourself the gratification of these slurs." "Slurrrrs?" he repeated loweringly. "Both of you--you and Miss Andriaovsky, or Maschka as I call her, _tout court_. Don't suppose I don't know as well as you do the exact worth of my 'sleuth-hound,' as you call him. You didn't come to me solely because I knew Andriaovsky well; you came because I've got the ear of the public also; and I tell you plainly that, however much you dislike it, Michael's fame as far as I'm of any use to him, depends on the popularity of _Martin Renard."_ He shook his big head. "This is what I feared," he said. "More," I continued, "you can depend upon it that Michael, wherever he is, knows all about that." "Ay, ay," he said sagely, "I misdoubt your own artistic soul's only to be saved by the writing of poor Michael's 'Life,' Harrison." "Leave that to me and Michael; we'll settle that. In the meantime, if you don't like it, write and publish the 'Life' yourself." He bent his brows on me. "It's precisely what I wanted to do from the varry first," he said. "If you'd cared to accept my symposium in the spirit in which it was offered, I cannot see that the 'Life' would have suffered. But now, when you're next in need of my services, ye'll mebbe send for me." He took up his hat. I assured him, and let him take it in what sense he liked, that I would do so; and he left me. Not for one single moment did I intend that they should bounce me like that. With or without their sanction and countenance, I intended to write and publish that "Life." Schofield--in my own house too--had had the advantage that a poor and ill-dressed man has over one who is not poor and ill-dressed; but my duty first of all was neither to him nor to Maschka, but to my friend. The worst of it was, however, that I had begun dimly to suspect that the Lancastrian had hit at least one nail on the head. "Your artistic soul's only to be saved by writing poor Michael's 'Life,'" he had informed me... and it was truer than I found it pleasant to believe. Perhaps, after all, my first duty was not to Andriaovsky, but to myself. I could have kicked myself that the fool had been perspicacious enough to see it, but that did not alter the fact. I saw that in the sense in which Andriaovsky understood Sin, I had sinned....