"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."