“More affidavits?” asked Gorham.  “What is the nature of them this time?”

“I am more keenly aware of how despicable this is than you will give me credit,” he said.  “I have lived among gentlemen long enough to recognize that to those who know of this, my act separates me from the society of which I have been a part.  But I have chosen.  With the wealth and power which this will bring me, I can buy back what now I seem to forfeit.”

He placed the papers in Mr. Gorham’s hands, turning his pale face away, and drumming nervously on the arm of his chair with his fingers.  The minutes seemed hours, and when he turned, he found Gorham’s penetrating eye fixed firmly upon him.  He had counted on the strength of the statements contained in the affidavits to protect him from personal violence, yet he half suspected Gorham’s purpose when he rose.  His host, however, walked quietly to the wall and pressed the button, then noiselessly resumed his seat.  The awful silence was in itself a strain on Covington.  He wished Gorham would speak, even though he thought he knew the nature of what those first words would be.  Presently Riley opened the door.

“Ask Mrs. Gorham and Miss Alice to come here, Riley.”

“Not Alice!” Covington cried.

Again silence pervaded the room, Gorham rereading the papers, and Covington still drumming on the arm of his chair.  As Eleanor and Alice entered they greeted Covington cordially, but he drew back without accepting the outstretched hands.

“We have a matter to discuss which affects us all,” Gorham said, handing Eleanor one of the papers.  “Please read this, but make no comment until later.”

The first few words conveyed its nature to her, and she swayed for a moment as if she might fall.  Alice sprang to her side.

“What is it, Eleanor,—­let me read it with you.  Shall I, daddy?”

Gorham nodded.  When they had finished, Eleanor started to speak, but her husband checked her.  The momentary faintness had passed, and she stood erect, eager for the word from Gorham which would permit her to break the silence.

“Where did this come from?” Alice demanded.

“Mr. Covington just brought it to me.”

“What did you do to the man who dared to draw it up?” she asked indignantly of Covington.

“Mr. Covington is the man who had it drawn up,” her father answered.  “Now we will listen to what he has to say about it.”

The man squared himself for the issue.

“You have read it,” he said huskily, “and you value your wife’s reputation?”

“Yes, beyond anything and everything else.”

“Beyond the Consolidated Companies and the gratification of injuring me with the committee?”

“Yes.”

Covington gained confidence from the ease with which all was moving.  A few minutes more of this as against a lifetime of wealth and power!  It was worth the degradation.  “It is sometimes necessary to walk through filth and slime to attain high places,” he remembered Gorham had once told him.