hopeless, endless trouble. What I have gone through with nobody knows.
That is something no one but I can ever understand. But that is now at
an end. I have taken refuge in flight and safety, where another might
have remained and compromised and suffered; but I am a weaker brother,
and--as for punishment, my own conscience, which has punished me so
terribly in the past, will continue to do so in the future. I am
greatly to be pitied, Mr. Holcombe, greatly to be pitied. And no one
knows that better than yourself. You know the value of the position I
held in New York City, and how well I was suited to it, and it to me.
And now I am robbed of it all. I am an exile in this wilderness.
Surely, Mr. Holcombe, this is not the place nor the time when you
should insult me by recalling the--"

"You contemptible hypocrite," said Holcombe, slowly. "What an ass you
must think I am! Now, listen to me."

"No, _you_ listen to me," thundered the other. He stepped
menacingly forward, his chest heaving under his open shirt, and his
fingers opening and closing at his side. "Leave the room, I tell you,"
he cried, "or I shall call the servants and make you!" He paused with
a short, mocking laugh. "Who do you think I am?" he asked; "a child
that you can insult and gibe at? I'm not a prisoner in the box for you
to browbeat and bully, Mr. District Attorney. You seem to forget that
I am out of your jurisdiction now."

He waited, and his manner seemed to invite Holcombe to make some angry
answer to his tone, but the young man remained grimly silent.

"You are a very important young person at home, Harry," Allen went on,
mockingly. "But New York State laws do not reach as far as Africa."