The Price He Paid — page 257: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

248 MAX INTERVIEWS COUNCILOR MOSER. “Say no more, Max,” said the doctor, sadly. “You do not know how hard a thing it is to have to aim a mortal blow at the man who was once a well- beloved friend. I hoped Winterfeld would have carried his point; but I should have known Arno Raven better. He held his ground, clever as was the adversary—held it to his own undoing. At that time it was open to him to yield, to retire; now he falls—falls disgraced and branded as a traitor! This, to a nature such as his, is to die a thousand deaths. I”’—here Brunnow rose impetuously—*“I will not be the one to deal out the last stroke. Let those who began the work go through with it to the bitter end. I have made up my mind to start the day after to-morrow.” Max insisted no further. He held out his hand to his father, who took it in his own, and responded cordially without a moment’s hesitation. “Now I will go to the councilor, and drive that most loyal subject of amost gracious sovereign to distraction, by suggesting myself, a rampant dema- gogue, asason-in-law. I may leave you alone for an hour, father? You need rest, after all the con- eratulations and the demonstrations of sympathy with which you have been overpowered all the morning. Good-by for the present. I am off to have a tilt with my future father-in-law.” Unsuspicious of the coming evil, Councilor Moser sat alone at home in his parlor, reading the papers. They spoiled the flavor of his coffee, and disturbed his rest. The councilor read, of course, only the ministerial journals; but even they could no longer dissemble the terrible fact that the State was ina bad way—hopelessly drifting further and further down the steep decline of liberalism. The councilor, on reading this, fell into a train of gloomy thought. For some time past the notion of retiring on his pension had occupied his mind. He had served the State honorably for nearly forty years, and had thereby satisfied his sense of duty. His daughter, too, the only pledge of a marriage contracted late (E(0) Eomicbooks