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 "And I've sounded the depths of your hideous infamy!"

"Oh!" He was laughing.

"I've done more. I've made a burnt offering, within the last five minutes. Can you guess what it is?"

"I—I—don't want to guess! I want to be told."

"A burnt offering on the altar of your happiness, dear. The papers in the case of the Dougherty Investment Company no longer exist."

"Dan!"

"Sylvia. … Does it please you?"

"Don't you know? … How can it do anything but please me? If you knew how I have suffered because my father suffered, fearing the. … No, but you must listen! Dan, it was wearing him down to his grave, and I thought"

"You thought that if you could get the papers and give them to him"

"Yes. I could see no harm, because he was as innocent as you"

"Of course. But why didn't you ask me?"