“Well,” said the lady, “there is no use in acting under a mask any longer.  I would not betray the confidence of a child to serve any man I ever saw.  You have been kind to me, but you have not trusted me.  The lad loves me, and trusts me, and I will never betray him.  What I tell you is true.  I have learned nothing from him that can be of any genuine advantage to you.  That is all the answer you will ever get from me.  If you choose to throw away our friendship, you can take the responsibility,” and Mrs. Dillingham hid her face in her handkerchief.

Mr. Belcher had been trying an experiment, and he had not succeeded—­could not succeed; and there sat the beautiful, magnanimous woman before him, her heart torn as he believed with love for him, yet loyal to her ideas of honor as they related to a confiding child!  How beautiful she was!  Vexed he certainly was, but there was a balm for his vexation in these charming revelations of her character.

“Well,” he said rising, and in his old good-natured tone, “there’s no accounting for a woman.  I’m not going to bother you.”

He seized her unresisting hand, pressed it to his lips, and went away.  He did not hear the musical giggle that followed him into the street, but, absorbed by his purpose, went home and mounted to his room.  Locking the door, and peering about among the furniture, according to his custom, he sat down at his desk, drew out the old contract, and started at his usual practice.  “Sign it,” he said to himself, “and then you can use it or not—­just as you please.  It’s not the signing that will trouble you; it’s the using.”

He tried the names all over again, and then, his heart beating heavily against the desk, he spread the document and essayed his task.  His heart jarred him.  His hand trembled.  What could he do to calm himself?  He rose and walked to his mirror, and found that he was pale.  “Are you afraid?” he said to himself.  “Are you a coward?  Ha! ha! ha! ha!  Did I laugh?  My God! how it sounded!  Aren’t you a pretty King of Wall Street!  Aren’t you a lovely President of the Crooked Valley Railroad!  Aren’t you a sweet sort of a nabob!  You must do it!  Do you hear?  You must do it!  Eh? do you hear?  Sit down, sir!  Down with you, sir! and don’t you rise again until the thing is done.”

The heart-thumping passed away.  The reaction, under the strong spur and steady push of will, brought his nerves up to steadiness, and he sat down, took his pencils and pens that had been selected for the service, and wrote first the name of Paul Benedict, and then, as witnesses, the names of Nicholas Johnson and James Ramsey.

So the document was signed, and witnessed by men whom he believed to be dead.  The witnesses whose names he had forged he knew to be dead.  With this document he believed he could defend his possession of all the patent rights on which the permanence of his fortune depended.  He permitted the ink to dry, then folded the paper, and put it back in its place.  Then he shut and opened the drawer, and took it out again.  It had a genuine look.