Montague sat with his hands clenched and his brows knitted.  His friend’s talk had been like a flash of lightning; it revealed huge menacing forms in the darkness about him.  All the structure of his hopes seemed to be tottering; his case, that he had worked so hard over—­his fifty thousand dollars that he had been so proud of!  Could it be that he had been tricked, and had made a fool of himself?

“How in the world am I to know?” he cried.

“That is more than I can tell,” said his friend.  “And for that matter, I’m not sure that you could do anything now.  All that I could do was to warn you what sort of ground you were treading on, so that you could watch out for yourself in future.”

Montague thanked him heartily for that service; and then he went back to his office, and spent the rest of the day pondering the matter.

What he had heard had made a vast change in things.  Before it everything had seemed simple; and now nothing was clear.  He was overwhelmed with a sense of the utter futility of his efforts; he was trying to build a house upon quicksands.  There was nowhere a solid spot upon which he could set his foot.  There was nowhere any truth—­there were only contending powers who used the phrases of truth for their own purposes!  And now he saw himself as the world saw him,—­a party to a piece of trickery,—­a knave like all the rest.  He felt that he had been tripped up at the first step in his career.

The conclusion of the whole matter was that he took an afternoon train for Albany; and the next morning he talked the matter out with the Judge.  Montague had realized the need of going slowly, for, after all, he had no definite ground for suspicion; and so, very tactfully and cautiously he explained, that it had come to his ears that many people believed there were interested parties behind the suit of Mr. Hasbrook; and that this had made him uncomfortable, as he knew nothing whatever about his client.  He had come to ask the Judge’s advice in the matter.

No one could have taken the thing more graciously than did the great man; he was all kindness and tact.  In the first place, he said, he had warned him in advance that enemies would attack him and slander him, and that all kinds of subtle means would be used to influence him.  And he must understand that these rumours were part of such a campaign; it made no difference how good a friend had brought them to him—­how could he know who had brought them to that friend?

The Judge ventured to hope that nothing that anyone might say could influence him to believe that he, the Judge, would have advised him to do anything improper.

“No,” said Montague, “but can you assure me that there are no interested parties behind Mr. Hasbrook?”

“Interested parties?” asked the other.

“I mean people connected with the Fidelity or other insurance companies.”

“Why, no,” said the Judge; “I certainly couldn’t assure you of that.”