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“But think,” said Aram–“think, sir, who I am. You don’t want to ruin me for the rest of my life just for a matter of fifteen dollars, do you? Fifteen dollars that no one has lost, either. If I’d embezzled a million or so, or if I had robbed the city, well and good! I’d have taken big risks for big money; but you are going to punish me just as hard, because I tried to please my wife, as though I had robbed a mint. No one has really been hurt,” he pleaded; “the men who wrote the poems–they’ve been paid for them; they’ve got all the credit for them they can get. You’ve not lost a cent. I’ve gained nothing by it; and yet you gentlemen are going to give this thing to the papers, and, as you say, sir, we know what they will make of it. What with my being my father’s son, and all that, my father is going to suffer. My family is going to suffer. It will ruin me–“

The editor put the papers back into his pocket. If Bronson had not been there he might possibly instead have handed them over to Mr. Aram, and this story would never have been written. But he could not do that now. Mr. Aram’s affairs had become the property of the New York newspaper.

He turned to his friend doubtfully. “What do you think, Bronson?” he asked.

At this sign of possible leniency Aram ceased in his rocking and sat erect, with eyes wide open and fixed on Bronson’s face. But the latter trailed his stick over the rug beneath his feet and shrugged his shoulders.

“Mr. Aram,” he said, “might have thought of his family and his father before he went into this business. It is rather late now. But,” he added, “I don’t think it is a matter we can decide in any event. It should be left to the firm.”

“Yes,” said the editor, hurriedly, glad of the excuse to temporize, “we must leave it to the house.” But he read Bronson’s answer to mean that he did not intend to let the plagiarist escape, and he knew that even were Bronson willing to do so, there was still his City Editor to be persuaded.

The two men rose and stood uncomfortably, shifting their hats in their hands–and avoiding each other’s eyes. Mr. Aram stood up also, and seeing that his last chance had come, began again to plead desperately.

“What good would fifteen dollars do me?” he said, with a gesture of his hands round the room. “I don’t have to look for money as hard as that I tell you,” he reiterated, “it wasn’t the money I wanted. I didn’t mean any harm. I didn’t know it was wrong. I just wanted to please my wife–that was all. My God, man, can’t you see that you are punishing me out of all proportion?”

The visitors walked towards the door, and he followed them, talking the faster as they drew near to it. The scene had become an exceedingly painful one, and they were anxious to bring it to a close.

The editor interrupted him. “We will let you know,” he said, “what we have decided to do by to-morrow morning.”

“You mean,” retorted the man, hopelessly and reproachfully, “that I will read it in the Sunday papers.”

Before the editor could answer they heard the door leading into the apartment open and close, and some one stepping quickly across the hall to the room in which they stood. The entrance to the room was hung with a portiere, and as the three men paused in silence this portiere was pushed back, and a young lady stood in the doorway, holding the curtains apart with her two hands. She was smiling, and the smile lighted a face that was inexpressibly bright and honest and true. Aram’s face had been lowered, but the eyes of the other two men were staring wide open towards the unexpected figure, which seemed to bring a taste of fresh pure air into the feverish atmosphere of the place. The girl stopped uncertainly when she saw the two strangers, and bowed her head slightly as the mistress of a house might welcome any one whom she found in her drawing-room. She was entirely above and apart from her surroundings. It was not only that she was exceedingly pretty, but that everything about her, from her attitude to her cloth walking-dress, was significant of good taste and high breeding.