“What is this?” cried Emmons, who had remained silent hitherto only from a species of stupefaction. “Is he trying to make us believe that his own father did not know him? What folly! How frivolous!” Nellie’s face clouded again; evidently to her, too, it seemed folly, but she said temperately: “At least, James, it will cost him his inheritance, if he can make us believe him. He certainly does not gain by the assertion.” “What?” cried Emmons. “How can you be so blind! He was willing enough to be Bob Lee--he kept mighty quiet, until I threatened suit. He was willing enough to take the money, until it looked dangerous; and then we began to hear that he was not the fellow at all.” Nellie turned desperately to Overton. “Mr. Overton,” she said, “do you believe this story?” Overton nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I do; but I must tell you that I have no proofs of any kind, no facts, no evidence.” “Then why do you believe it?” “Why, indeed?” murmured Emmons with a carefully suppressed laugh; “a very good question.” “I have asked myself why,” Overton answered, “and I can find only two reasons, if they may be called so. First, I do feel a difference between this man and the Bob Lee I used to know--a difference of personality. And, second, I have never had any reason to doubt this man’s word.” “Ah, but I have,” said Nellie. “As a boy Bob was not truthful.” “I was not speaking of Lee,” said Overton. Nellie put her hand to her head. “Oh, I don’t know what to think,” she said, and jumped up and walked to the window, as if to get away from Emmons, who was ready to tell her exactly what to think. She stood there, and there was silence in the room. Overton sat feeling his chin, as if interested in nothing but the closeness of his morning’s shave. Vickers, though his head was bent, had fixed his eyes on Nellie; and Emmons leant back with the manner of the one sane man in a party of lunatics. Nellie was the first to speak. Turning from the window she asked, “If you are not my cousin, who are you?” “My name is Lewis Vickers.” She thought it over a minute, and threw out her hands despairingly. “Oh, it is impossible!” she cried. “Why, if you were not my cousin, should you have stayed and worked for us, and borne all the hideous things I said to you? Only a saint would do such a thing.” “He’ll not ask you to believe him a saint,” put in Overton. “No, I don’t even claim to be much of an improvement on Lee.” “Oh, any one would be an improvement on poor Bob.” In answer, Vickers got up, and going over to where she stood beside the window, he told her his story. He told it ostensibly to her alone, but Emmons on the sofa was plainly an interested listener. Vickers spoke with that simplicity, that directness and absence of any attempt at self-justification, which the wise use when they are most desirous of being leniently judged.