The judge drew his broad-brimmed hat deeper over his brows, and advanced to the table.—"I will witness your signature," he quietly observed, and signed a name which Godlike would have given five years of his life to have read.
"The second document rests on the table before you. The writing is concealed by a sheet of paper. You will sign without reading it. There is the place for your signature." And he pushed the concealed document across the table.
"This is too much,—it is infamous," said Godlike, between his teeth. "How do I know what I am signing? I will not do it." He sank back doggedly in his chair; the perspiration stood in thick beads upon his brow.
"Esther," (she lingered on the threshold, as the judge addressed her,) "tell Mr. Godlike's friends that he will be glad to see them."
Oh! bitterly, in that moment, did the fallen statesman pay for the misdeeds of years! As if urged from his seat by an influence beyond his control, he rose and advanced to the table, his brow deformed by the big veins of helpless rage, his eyes bloodshot with suppressed fury,—he signed his name. His hand trembled like a leaf.
"Now, now—am I free?" he cried, beating the table with his clenched hand. "Have you done with me?" He turned his gaze from Esther, who stood trembling on the threshold, to the judge, who, with his shadowed face, stood calm and composed before him.
"I will witness your signature," said the judge, and again signed that name, which Godlike, even amid his wrath, endeavored, and in vain, to read.
At the same instant he placed his hand upon the candle, and all was darkness. In less time than it takes to record it, Godlike was seized, pinioned and blindfolded.
"You will be taken to your dressing-room, in which you will resume your usual attire, after which, without questioning or seeing any one, you will quietly leave this house. As for the gentlemen whom I summoned to this house to look upon your disgrace, I will manage to dismiss them, without mentioning your name."
"And the papers which you have forced me to sign?" interrupted Gabriel.