"You are to look sick, too, and—"
"Oh, I can fix that easy enough. I'll—"
"Well, then fix it and come back here at exactly two o'clock this afternoon."
At the appointed hour, Mr. Winkle met Miss Estelle Morris and took her with great dignity and care to the Boler House, where he was joined by another gentleman—an officer of the law—and the three started out together.
"The examination was strictly private in deference to the wishes of the parties first implicated, John Boler and Dr. Ralston, and because it is now believed that the girl is more sinned against than sinning," wrote the reporter for the morning rival of the Screamer. "It is the object of justice to help the erring to start anew in life wherever that line of action is consonant with the stern necessities of the blind goddess. Neither of the male accomplices appeared in the case, but Mr. Silas Winkle—whose name has figured somewhat conspicuously in the matter—produced the principal, who, it must be confessed, is pretty enough to account for all the chivalry which has been displayed in her behalf. She confessed to twenty-six years of single wretchedness, although she could easily pass for a year or two younger. It would appear that she had lived in Mr. Winkle's family for nine years as governess to his children and came to the city with him about two weeks ago. The justice accepted this explanation of the relations existing between them, and that there was no attempt at suicide at all, but only an accidental overdose of a remedy prescribed by Dr. Ralston, which explained satisfactorily the doctor's connection with the unsavory case, and places him once more in the honorable position from which this unfortunate affair so nearly hurled him. In short, the justice said in substance, 'not guilty, and don't do it any more.' The young woman bowed modestly, and Silas Winkle led her from the court-room a sadder, and, let us hope, a wiser woman. Such as she must have much to live for. Many a man has braved death for a face less lovely than hers. This ends the 'Boler House Mystery,' which, after all, turns out to be only a tempest in a teapot, with a respectable father of a family and his children's governess for dramatis persono and a fresh young reporter on a certain sensational morning contemporary as general misinformer of the public as usual." This was headlined, "Exploded—Another Fake by Our Esteemed Contemporary."
That night John Boler rubbed his eyes when he read the report. "I thought you were a bachelor, Mr. Winkle," said he, "and here you produce in court a governess—"
"I am," said Mr. Winkle, laughing, and then he showed his "want" advertisement. "That is the whole case, Johnnie, my boy, but it is all over now. Don't you worry; it might go to your head again. You saved the girl and I saved you, and it only cost me $50. I'd pay that any time to get ahead of the Screamer, and I rather think I salted that enterprising sheet down this time, don't you? But what is to become of that girl?" added he, without waiting for a reply to his first question. "You've taken the liberty to save her life, which she had decided she did not want under existing circumstances. Has she simply got to go over the same thing again? I told her that I'd look after her, but I don't see how in thunder I'm going to do it. She won't take money from me and I've got nothing for her to do. Is there nothing ahead of her but a coffin or a police court?"
"For this individual girl, yes. Dr. Ralston has already secured work for her; but for all the thou-sands of her kind—" John Boler's voice trembled a little and he stopped speaking to hide it. He in common with most men was heartily ashamed of his better nature.
"For all the thousands of her kind," broke in Mr. Winkle, "there are just exactly three roads open—starvation, suicide, or shame, with the courts, the legislature, and the newspapers on the side of the latter. I just tell you, Johnnie, it makes my blood boil. I—I don't see any way out of it—none at all. That is the worst of it."
"I do," said Mr. Boler.