“Now don’t attempt to disguise the matter, you know!  Come out on the square-own up!  Jealousy plays the devil with one now and then.  I know-I have had a touch of it; had many a little love affair in my time—­”

George again interrupts by inquiring to what he is coming.

“To the attempt (the accommodation man assumes an air of sternness) you made last night on the life of that unhappy girl.  It is needless,” he adds, “to plead ignorance.  The Judge has the poignard; and what’s more, there are four witnesses ready to testify.  It’ll go hard with you, my boy.”  He shakes his head warningly.

“I swear before God and man I am as innocent as ignorant of the charge.  The poignard I confess is mine; but I had no part in the act of last night, save to carry the prostrate girl-the girl I dearly love-away.  This I can prove by her own lips.”

Mr. Soloman, with an air of legal profundity, says:  “This is all very well in its way, George, but it won’t stand in law.  The law is what you have got to get at.  And when you have got at it, you must get round it; and then you must twist it and work it every which way-only be careful not to turn its points against yourself; that, you know, is the way we lawyers do the thing.  You’ll think we’re a sharp lot; and we have to be sharp, as times are.”

“It is not surprising,” replies George, as if waking from a fit of abstraction, “that she should have sought revenge of one who so basely betrayed her at the St. Cecilia—­”

“There, there!” Mr. Soloman interrupts, changing entirely the expression of his countenance, “the whole thing is out!  I said there was an unexplained mystery somewhere.  It was not the Judge, but me who betrayed her to the assembly.  Bless you, (he smiles, and crooking his finger, beckons a servant, whom he orders to bring a julep,) I was bound to do it, being the guardian of the Society’s dignity, which office I have held for years.  But you don’t mean to have it that the girl attempted—­(he suddenly corrects himself)—­Ah, that won’t do, George.  Present my compliments to Anna—­I wouldn’t for the world do aught to hurt her feelings, you know that—­and say I am ready to get on my knees to her to confess myself a penitent for having injured her feelings.  Yes, I am ready to do anything that will procure her forgiveness.  I plead guilty.  But she must in return forgive the Judge.  He is hard in law matters—­that is, we of the law consider him so—­now and then; but laying that aside, he is one of the best old fellows in the world, loves Anna to distraction; nor has he the worst opinion in the world of you, George.  Fact is, I have several times heard him refer to you in terms of praise.  As I said before, being the man to do you a bit of a good turn, take my advice as a friend.  The Judge has got you in his grasp, according to every established principle of law; and having four good and competent witnesses, (you have no voice in law, and Anna’s won’t stand before a jury,) will send you up for a twelve-months’ residence in Mount Rascal.”