"Penny, I can't wait. I must act now. I must denounce the whole damnable plot to the people of this country. I must not rest one second longer in silence as an accessory. I shall denounce——"
"Yes, George, you shall denounce," exclaimed his partner. "But just whom—yourself, that you did not warn Miss Eliot all day yesterday!"
"Yes," cried Remington, "first of all, myself as a coward!"
"All right. Next, then, your Uncle Martin Jaffry, who was earnestly trying to help you in the only way he knew how to help! Why, George, that would be——" "That would be the least I could do to let the people see——"
"To let the people see that Mrs. Brewster-Smith and all your social friends in this town are associated with Mike the Goat and his gang——"
Before Evans could finish, his partner stopped him.
"Yes, yes—the whole damned system of greed! The rich greed and the poor greed—our criminal classes plotting to keep justice from the decent law-abiding people of the place, who are led like sheep to the slaughter. What did the owners pay that money for? Not for the dirty job that was turned—not primarily. But to elect me, because they thought I would not enforce the factory laws and the housing laws and would protect them in their larceny! That money Uncle Martin collected was my price—my price!"
He was standing before his friends, rigid and white in rage. Neither man answered him.
"And because the moral sense of the community was in the hearts and heads of the women of the community," he went on, "those who are upholding the immoral compact between business and politics had to attack the womanhood of the town—and Genevieve's peril is my share in the shame. By God, I'm through!"