“Jake, you know now why I couldn't go and live in your house, with this thing hanging over me.”
“I do not quite understand you,” I said.
“Why, as times are, if I had to pay that sum of money it would ruin me,” he declared. “I don't see how I can go to law with them and smirch myself and you with scandal, to say nothing of the girl—”
“You needn't worry about her,” I interrupted, with a smile. “As to myself, I'll tell all I know as publicly as you please.”
“I feel disgraced enough already,” said he, “but worse things are coming. I'm not going to lie down and let them rob me. I shall fight them, but not with your testimony.”
“I am your friend—” I began.
“Wait,” he interrupted, as he closed his desk. “Heron, I'm in love with your sister. I have never told her or any one. It may be a hopeless love; but, you see, it won't answer for you to have anything to do with this case, and I must keep away from your house until I am done with it. Your sister is sacred to me. I must keep her name as far from mine as possible until I am vindicated and free.”
Then James Henry McCarthy—a gentleman than whom no knight of old had better chivalry—shook my hand and bade me good-night.