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252 said, 'is—that you can't marry them; the worst of unmarried women is—that they want to marry you.' But when it came to the letter, the poet's eye was upon my brother-in-law. Charles, I must fain admit, garbled the document sadly. Still, even so, some gleam of good feeling remained in its sentences. But Charles ended all by saying, 'So, to crown his misdemeanours, the rascal shows himself a whining cur and a disgusting Pharisee.'

'Don't you think,' the poet interposed, in his cultivated drawl, 'he may have really meant it? Why should not some grain of compunction have stirred his soul still?—some remnant of conscience made him shrink from betraying a man who confided in him? I have an idea, myself, that even the worst of rogues have always some good in them. I notice they often succeed to the end in retaining the affection and fidelity of women.'

'Oh, I said so!' Charles sneered. 'I told you you literary men have always an underhand regard for a scoundrel.'

'Perhaps so,' the poet answered. 'For we are all of us human. Let him that is without sin among us cast the first stone.' And then he relapsed into moody silence.

We rose from table. Cigars went round. We adjourned to the smoking-room. It was a Moorish marvel, with Oriental hangings. There, Senator Wrengold and Charles exchanged reminiscences of bonanzas and ranches and other exciting post-