This was the only allusion made to public events during the meal; but when it was over and the servants had disappeared she set her chair before the roaring fire, spread out her splendid scarlet skirt, and, holding a gemmed fan between her face and the blaze, said:

"Now we will talk. You must tell me everything, Neil, without holdbacks. You are a lawyer and know that everything must be told or nothing. Do you feel that you can trust me?"

Then Neil looked into the dark, speaking face, bending slightly toward him. Kindness lighted its eyes and parted its lips, but, above all, it was a countenance whose truth was beyond question. "Madame," he answered, "I believe you are my friend."

"In plain truth, I am your friend. I am also your mother's friend. She is the best of women. I love her, and there's an end of it. When I came to New York first I was a stranger and people looked curiously, even doubtfully, at me. Janet Semple stood by me like a mother just as long as I needed her care. Do I forget? That is far from Angelica Jacobus. I never forget a kindness. Now, Neil, I have known you more than twenty years. What can I do for you?"

"O Madame, what can you not do? Your sympathy has put new life into me. I feel as if, perhaps, even yet there may be happy days in store."

"Plenty of them. I hear you paid the fines immediately. Did they pinch you much?"

"No. Jacob Cohen bought a piece of land from me. I do believe he bought it out of pure kindness."

"Pure kindness and good business. He knows how to mingle things. But that Jew has a great soul. Jacobus has said so often, and no one can deceive Jacobus. But what are these stories I hear about your lovely niece? Is there any truth in them?"

"None, I'll warrant," answered Neil warmly. "But I will tell you the exact truth, and then you may judge if little Maria deserves to be treated as people are now treating her."

Then Neil succinctly, and with clearness and feeling, told the story of Maria's entanglement with Harry Bradley, laying particular stress on the fact that she never had met him clandestinely, and that his note had been a great offense and astonishment to her. "I was present," he said, "when my father told her of the note, and of its being read in the Police Court, and I shall never forget her face. It is an easy thing to say that a person was shocked, but Maria's very soul was so dismayed and shocked that I seemed to see it fly from her face. She would have fallen had I not caught her. Why was that note written? I cannot understand it."