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 VIII

EQUITY A FRUIT OF THE GODS

By the time the waiter had returned, the young advocate was addressing himself to the bundle of papers with a remarkable energy. Already a fierce mental excitement had stirred him. His senses, overstimulated by a wine of great potency, and by a too sudden reaction from a state of actual bodily starvation, a fever had been kindled in his frame. And those high ambitions which had reconciled him to existence through so long a period of the most abject penury, yet whose only home had been his wild dreams, had suddenly, at the touch of the magic wand of the enchanter, acquired a name and a local habitation.

It was no wonder that to the eyes of the solicitor, that cool, mature, and rather cynical man of the world, this young man, in whom strong and deep emotions had been let loose, soon became an object of scientific interest. Mr. Whitcomb felt himself to be even a little disconcerted by the feverish manner in which the young advocate tossed about the pages of his brief. As he came to note the vivid pallor of the face before him, the burning of the eyes, the twitching of the lips, he felt a qualm of uneasiness. Perchance it had been neither wise nor kind to be so lavish of the Château Margaux. Blood which had been deteriorated by a course of insufficient food was only too likely to be over