The Root of All Evil. J. S. Fletcher

      Grice turned on his son in a sudden paroxysm of fury.

      "Ye gre't damned softhead!" he burst out. "Ye don't mean to say 'at you were fool enough to write letters! Letters!"

      "I wrote some," replied Albert sullenly. "Now and then, when I was away, like. It's t'usual thing when you're engaged to a young woman."

      "Quite the usual thing—when you're engaged to a young woman," said Palethorpe, with a quiet sneer. "And we have the letters—all of 'em. And the engagement ring, too. Mr. Grice, it's no good blustering. This is as clear a case as ever I heard of, and your son'll have to pay. It's no concern of mine whether you take my advice or not, but if you do take it, you'll come to terms with my client. If this case goes before a judge and jury—and it certainly will, if you don't settle it in the meantime—you won't have a leg to stand on, and Miss Farnish will get heavy damages—heavy!—and you'll have all the costs. And between you and me, Mr. Grice, you'll not come out of the matter with very clean hands yourself. We know quite well, for you're a bit talkative, you know—how you engineered the breaking-off of this engagement and contrived the marriage of your son to his cousin, and we shall put you in the witness-box, and ask you some very unpleasant questions. And you're a churchwarden, eh?" concluded Palethorpe, as he turned to the door. "Come now—you know my client's been abominably treated by you and your son—you'd better do the proper thing, and compensate her handsomely."

      Grice had become scarlet with anger during the solicitor's last words, and now he picked up the writ and thrust it into his pocket.

      "I'll say nowt no more to you!" he exclaimed. "I'll see my lawyer in t'morning, and hear what he's gotten to say to such a piece o' impidence!"

      "That's the first sensible thing I've heard you say," remarked Palethorpe. "See him by all means—and he'll say to you just what I've said. You'll see!"

      The calm confidence of Palethorpe's tone, and the nonchalant way in which he left father and son, cost Grice a sleepless night. He lay turning in his bed, alternately cursing Jeckie for her insolence and Albert for his foolishness in writing those letters. He had sufficient knowledge of the world to know that Palethorpe was probably right—yet it had never once occurred to him that a country lass could have sufficient sense to invoke the law.

      "She's too damned clever i' all ways is that there Jecholiah!" he groaned. "Very like I should ha' done better if I'd kept in wi' her, and let her wed our Albert. It's like to cost a pretty penny afore I've done wi' it if I have to pay her an' all. There were a hundred pounds for Albert's trip to Nottingham and another hundred for t'weddin' and t'honeymoon, and I laid out a good three hundred i' doin' up them rooms and buyin' t'pianner, and now then, there's this here! An' I'd rayther go and fling my brass into t'sea nor have it go into t'hands o' that there Jezebel! I wish I'd never ta'en our Albert into partnership, nor said owt about his wife's two thousand pound—then, when this came on he could ha' pleaded 'at he wor nowt but a paid man, and she'd ha' got next to nowt i' t'way o' damages. Damages!—to that there!—it's enough to mak' me shed tears o' blood!"

      Grice was with his solicitor, Mr. Camberley, in Sicaster, by ten o'clock next morning. He had left Albert at home, judging him to be worse than an encumbrance in matters of this sort. He himself had sufficient acumen to keep nothing back from his man of law; he told him all about the ring and the letters, and his face grew heavier as Mr. Camberley's face grew longer.

      "You'll have to settle, Grice," said the solicitor, an oldish, experienced man. "It's precisely as Palethorpe said—you haven't a leg to stand on! You know, I'm a bit surprised at you; you might have foreseen this."