“They won’t!” And for the first time Roger Holt slightly quavered.
“A man’s honor and happiness are much, and he will struggle long before he will consent to part from them. But a citizen of a great town like this, owes something to his fellows, and submitting to blackmail is but a poor precedent to set. You will have to proceed as you will, Mr. Holt; neither my nephew nor myself, have any money to give you.”
The glare in the man’s eyes was like that of an aroused tiger. “Do you mean to say,” cried he, “that you will not give from your abundance, a paltry thousand dollars to save one of your blood from a suspicion that will never leave him, never leave him to the end of his miserable days?”
“I mean to say that not one cent will pass from me to you in payment of a silence, which as a gentleman, you ought to feel it incumbent upon you to preserve unasked, if only to prove to your fellow-men that you have not entirely lost all the instincts of the caste to which you once belonged. Not that I look for anything so disinterested from