He turned, and saw Montague, quite pale.  “I suppose by ’getting out of it,’” said the latter, “you mean dropping the case.”

“Of course,” was the answer.

“Well, then,” he continued, very gravely,—­“I can see that it’s going to be hard, and I’m sorry.  But you might as well understand me at the very beginning—­I will never drop this case.”

Oliver’s jaw fell limp.  “Allan!” he gasped.

There was a silence; and then the storm broke.  Oliver knew his brother well enough to realize just how thoroughly he meant what he said; and so he got the full force of the shock all at once.  He raved and swore and wrung his hands, and declaimed at his brother, saying that he had betrayed him, that he was ruining him—­dumping himself and the whole family into the ditch.  They would be jeered at and insulted—­they would be blacklisted and thrown out of Society.  Alice’s career would be cut short—­every door would be closed to her.  His own career would die before it was born; he would never get into the clubs—­he would be a pariah—­he would be bankrupted and penniless.  Again and again Oliver went over the situation, naming person after person who would be outraged, and describing what that person would do; there were the Wallings and the Venables and the Havens, the Vandams and the Todds and the Wymans—­they were all one regiment, and Montague had flung a bomb into the centre of them!

It was very terrible to him to see his brother’s rage and despair; but he had seen his way clear through this matter, and he knew that there was no turning back for him.  “It is painful to learn that all one’s acquaintances are thieves,” he said.  “But that does not change my opinion of stealing.”

“But my God!” cried Oliver; “did you come to New York to preach sermons?”

To which the other answered, “I came to practise law.  And the lawyer who will not fight injustice is a traitor to his profession.”

Oliver threw up his hands in despair.  What could one say to a sentiment such as that?

—­But then again he came to the charge, pointing out to his brother the position in which he had placed himself with the Wallings.  He had accepted their hospitality; they had taken him and Alice in, and done everything in the world for them—­things for which no money could ever repay them.  And now he had struck them!

But the only effect of that was to make Montague regret that he had ever had anything to do with the Wallings.  If they expected to use their friendship to tie his hands in such a matter, they were people he would have left alone.

“But do you realize that it’s not merely yourself you’re ruining?” cried Oliver.  “Do you know what you’re doing to Alice?”

“That is harder yet for me,” the other replied.  “But I am sure that Alice would not ask me to stop.”

Montague was firmly set in his own mind; but it seemed to be quite impossible for his brother to realize that this was the case.  He would give up; but then, going back into his own mind, and facing the thought of this person and that, and the impossibility of the situation which would arise, he would return to the attack with new anguish in his voice.  He implored and scolded, and even wept; and then he would get himself together again, and come and sit in front of his brother and try to reason with him.