"Well, to tell you the truth. I'm not surprised. I’ve been thinking things, myself. You'll say that's disloyal-"
Tut," grunted Dr. Fell. "Why?"
"— but there it is. Now do you realize what a mess well all be in when this gets out? Scandal, publicity, slime… My God, don't you see it? They may even try to stop my marriage; they will try, if I know my mother. They won't succeed, but that's not the point. Why does everybody have to be subjected to this? Why…" His puzzled expression as he glanced at each of them, puzzled and baffled and rather desperate, seemed to demand the reason for the injustice of having criminals in the world just when he was on the point of matrimony. "What good purpose will it serve to drag all this out? Can you tell me that?"
"I take it, my boy," said the bishop, "that you do not care whether your fiancée's father had been a criminal? Or a murderer?"
Two muscles worked up the sides of Morley’s jaws. His eyes were puzzled.
"I don't care," he said simply, "if the old swine committed every murder in Chicago… But why does it have to be made public?"
"But you want the truth to come out, don't you?"
"Yes, I suppose I do," admitted Morley, rubbing his forehead. "That's the rules. Got to play fair. But why can't they just catch him and hang him quietly, without anybody knowing…? Tm talking rot, of course, but if I could make you understand what I mean… Why do the damned newspapers have a right to splash out all the scandal they like just because a man's been murdered? Why can't you administer justice in private, the same as you make a law or perform an operation?"
"That, Mr. Standish," Dr. Fell said, "is a problem for discussion over half-a-dozen bottles of beer. But for the moment I don't think you need worry about scandal. I was coming to that: I mean our plan of campaign… Do you see what we've got to do?"
"No," said Morley hopelessly. "I wish I could."