“Do you think this man deserves to be punished?” she demanded.

She had resumed her seat at the desk and partly regained her self-possession.

“Why do you ask?  What is your interest in this matter?”

“I don’t know,” she replied evasively; “his case interests me, that’s all.  Its rather romantic.  Your son loves this man’s daughter.  He is in disgrace—­many seem to think unjustly.”  Her voice trembled with emotion as she continued:  “I have heard from one source or another—­you know I am acquainted with a number of newspaper men—­I have heard that life no longer has any interest for him, that he is not only disgraced but beggared, that he is pining away slowly, dying of a broken heart, that his wife and daughter are in despair.  Tell me, do you think he deserves such a fate?”

Ryder remained thoughtful a moment, and then he replied: 

“No, I do not—­no—­”

Thinking that she had touched his sympathies, Shirley followed up her advantage: 

“Oh, then, why not come to his rescue—­you, who are so rich, so powerful; you, who can move the scales of justice at your will—­ save this man from humiliation and disgrace!”

Ryder shrugged his shoulders, and his face expressed weariness, as if the subject had begun to bore him.

“My dear girl, you don’t understand.  His removal is necessary.”

Shirley’s face became set and hard.  There was a contemptuous ring to her words as she retorted: 

“Yet you admit that he may be innocent!”

“Even if I knew it as a fact, I couldn’t move.”

“Do you mean to say that if you had positive proof?” She pointed to the drawer in the desk where he had placed the letters.  “If you had absolute proof in that drawer, for instance?  Wouldn’t you help him then?”

Ryder’s face grew cold and inscrutable; he now wore his fighting mask.

“Not even if I had the absolute proof in that drawer?” he snapped viciously.

“Have you absolute proof in that drawer?” she demanded.

“I repeat that even if I had, I could not expose the men who have been my friends.  It’s noblesse oblige in politics as well as in society, you know.”

He smiled again at her, as if he had recovered his good humour after their sharp passage at arms.

“Oh, it’s politics—­that’s what the papers said.  And you believe him innocent.  Well, you must have some grounds for your belief.”

“Not necessarily—­”

“You said that even if you had the proofs, you could not produce them without sacrificing your friends, showing that your friends are interested in having this man put off the bench—­” She stopped and burst into hysterical laughter.  “Oh, I think you’re having a joke at my expense,” she went on, “just to see how far you can lead me.  I daresay Judge Rossmore deserves all he gets.  Oh, yes—­ I’m sure he deserves it.”  She rose and walked to the other side of the room to conceal her emotion.