New York and all the country would gossip about it.

Mrs.Dillingham would peruse it.

Would it change her attitude toward him?
This was a serious matter, and it touched him to the quick.
The good angel who had favored him all his life, and brought him safe and sound out of every dirty difficulty of his career, was already on his way with assistance, although he did not know it.

Sometimes this angel had assumed the form of a lie, sometimes that of a charity, sometimes that of a palliating or deceptive circumstance; but it had always appeared at the right moment; and this time it came in the form of an interviewing reporter.

His bell rang, and a servant appeared with the card of "Mr.Alphonse Tibbets of 'The New York Tattler.'" A moment before, he was cursing "The Tattler" for publishing the record of his shame, but he knew instinctively that the way out of his scrape had been opened to him.
"Show him up," said the proprietor at once.