"Yes, but—I beg your pardon—but why don't you?"
She took Howard's arm and walked out, looking back as if she hoped that the Judge might repent and follow, but he did not; he resumed his walk up and down the room. Suddenly he turned. "Now, what are you doing, William?" The brother had entered and was turning over papers on the desk.
"I am looking for a slip of paper I dropped out of my pocket-book."
"You didn't leave anything here."
"That may be," said William, "but I don't know whether I did or not till I find out. A man never knows—"
"Some men never know," the Judge broke in, going over to the desk and taking a paper out of William's hand. "Go away, please." William stepped back, shocking himself from the storage battery of his dignity. "Oh, I can go, if that's what you want."
"That's what I want."
"It is? All right. John, I'll be hanged if I know what's the matter with you." The Judge was paying no attention. He was listening to a cab driving off from the door. "I say, sir, I'll be hanged if I know what's the matter with you."
"I heard what you said."
"I don't know whether you did or not. There's no living in the house with you. And last night, after I had been knocked down in the street—and I'm going to kill him if detectives can find him—last night when I merely intimated that something had taken place on the fourteenth of September, you—"