Chapter XXII - Page 2

replied, "and ask the aid of his judgment. I go by a very straight road to conclusions; but I want the light of your reason upon these conclusions."

"I am not a lawyer as you are aware, Constance--only a doctor."

"You are a man with a heart and common sense," she answered, with just a little shade of rebuke in her tones, "and as God has put in your way a wretched human soul that may be lost, unless you stretch forth a saving hand, is there any room for question as to duty? There is none, my husband! Squire Floyd believes his daughter guilty; and while he rests in this conclusion, he will not aid her in anything that points to exposure and disgrace. She must, therefore, if a vigorous defence is undertaken, look elsewhere for aid and comfort."

I began to see the matter a little clearer.

"Mr. Wallingford is the best man I know."

"Mr. Wallingford!" I thought Constance would have looked me through.

"Mr. Wallingford!" she repeated, still gazing steadily into my face. "Are you jesting?"

"No," I replied calmly. "In a case that involves so much, she wants a wise and good defender; and I do not know of any man upon whom she could so thoroughly rely."

Constance dropped her eyes to the floor.

"It would not do," she said, after some moments.

"Why?"

"Their former relation to each other precludes its possibility."

"But, you must remember, Constance, that Delia never knew how deeply he was once attached to her."

"She knows that he offered himself."

"And that, in a very short time afterwards, he met her with as much apparent indifference as if she had never been to him more than a pleasant acquaintance. Of the struggle through which he passed, in the work of obliterating her image from his mind, she knows nothing."

"But he knows it," objected Constance.

"And what does that signify? Will he defend her less skillfully on this account? Rather will he not feel a stronger interest in the case?"

"I do not think that she will employ him to defend her," said Constance. "I would not, were the case mine."

"Womanly pride spoke there, Constance."

"Or rather say a manly lack of perception in your case."

"Perception of what?"

"Of the fitness of things," she answered.

"That is just what I do see," I returned. "There is no man in S----better fitted for conducting this case than Mr. Wallingford."

"She will never place it in his hands; you may take a woman's word for that," said my wife confidently. "Of all living men he is the last one to whom she could talk of the