The Conqueror

XXXI

Af­ter din­ner he called on Oliv­er Wol­cott, the Comptroller, one of his clos­est friends, and re­lat­ed the scene of the morn­ing, adding the ex­pla­na­tion. Wol­cott was a Pu­ri­tan, and did not ap­prove of the mar­ital di­gres­sions of his friends. But in this case the of­fence was so much less than the ac­cu­sa­tion that he lis­tened with fre­quent ejac­ula­tions of con­tent. He agreed at once to call at Hamil­ton's house at eight o'clock, look over the pa­pers, and read them aloud when the trio ar­rived.

“And may the dev­il damn them,” he added. “It will be one of the keen­est plea­sures of my life to con­found them. The un­pa­tri­ot­ic vil­lains! They know that in dis­grac­ing you they would dis­cred­it the Unit­ed States, and in their hearts they know that your mea­sures are the on­ly wheels for this coun­try to run on; but to their par­ty spite they would sac­ri­fice ev­ery­thing. I'll be there.”

And when the men called that night at nine o'clock, he read them the cor­re­spon­dence from be­gin­ning to end--Reynold's let­ters, and those of the wom­an. More than once Muh­len­berg begged him to de­sist, but he was mer­ci­less. When he had fin­ished, Hamil­ton ex­plained that he had dis­guised his hand­writ­ing lest the man forge or make oth­er use of it.

The three rose as soon as the or­deal was over. “It is no use for me to at­tempt to ex­press my re­gret or my hu­mil­ia­tion,” said Muh­len­berg, “I shall be ashamed of this as long as I live.”

“I feel like an ass and a spy,” ex­claimed Ven­able. “I hearti­ly beg your par­don, sir.”

“Your mis­take was jus­ti­fi­able. Are you sat­is­fied?”

“More than sat­is­fied.”

Hamil­ton turned to Mon­roe.

“I made a mis­take,” said the Sen­ator from Vir­ginia. “I beg your par­don.”

“And I shall hear no more of this?”

He re­ceived the solemn promise of each, then let them go. But he locked the let­ters care­ful­ly in their draw­er again.

“Are you go­ing to keep those things?” asked Wol­cott. “It must have made you sick to lis­ten to them.”

“It did. Per­haps I shall keep them for penance, per­haps be­cause I do not trust Mon­roe.”