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Title: The Golden Key; Or, A Heart's Silent Worship

Author: Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

Release Date: January 13, 2016 [EBook #50909]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ***

The Golden Key

OR

A HEART’S SILENT WORSHIP

By MRS. GEORGIE SHELDON

AUTHOR OF

“Thrice Wedded,” “Little Miss Whirlwind,”

“The Magic Cameo,” “A Hoiden’s

Conquest,” “Mona,” etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK

POPULAR BOOKS

By MRS. GEORGIE SHELDON

In Handsome Cloth Binding

PRICE PER VOLUME,

60 CENTS

- Audrey’s Recompense

- Brownie’s Triumph

- Churchyard Betrothal, The

- Dorothy Arnold’s Escape

- Dorothy’s Jewels

- Earl Wayne’s Nobility

- Edrie’s Legacy

- Esther, the Fright

- Faithful Shirley

- False and The True, The

- For Love and Honor

- Sequel to Geoffrey’s Victory

- Forsaken Bride, The

- Geoffrey’s Victory

- Girl in a Thousand, A

- Golden Key, The

- Grazia’s Mistake

- Heatherford Fortune, The

- Sequel to The Magic Cameo

- He Loves Me For Myself

- Sequel to the Lily of Mordaunt

- Helen’s Victory

- Her Faith Rewarded

- Sequel to Faithful Shirley

- Her Heart’s Victory

- Sequel to Max

- Heritage of Love, A

- Sequel to The Golden Key

- His Heart’s Queen

- Hoiden’s Conquest, A

- How Will It End

- Sequel to Marguerite’s Heritage

- Lily of Mordaunt, The

- Little Marplot, The

- Little Miss Whirlwind

- Lost, A Pearle

- Love’s Conquest

- Sequel to Helen’s Victory

- Love Victorious, A

- Magic Cameo, The

- Marguerite’s Heritage

- Masked Bridal, The

- Max, A Cradle Mystery

- Mona

- Mysterious Wedding Ring, A

- Nameless Dell

- Nora

- Queen Bess

- Ruby’s Reward

- Shadowed Happiness, A

- Sequel to Wild Oats

- Sibyl’s Influence

- Stella Roosevelt

- That Dowdy

- Thorn Among Roses, A

- Sequel to a Girl in a Thousand

- Threads Gathered Up

- Sequel to Virgie’s Inheritance

- Thrice Wedded

- Tina

- Trixy

- True Aristocrat, A

- True Love Endures

- Sequel to Dorothy Arnold’s Escape

- True Love’s Reward

- Sequel to Mona

- True to Herself

- Sequel to Witch Hazel

- Two Keys

- Virgie’s Inheritance

- Wedded By Fate

- Welfleet Mystery, The

- Wild Oats

- Winifred’s Sacrifice

- Witch Hazel

- With Heart so True

- Sequel to His Heart’s Queen

- Woman’s Faith, A

- Sequel to Nameless Dell

For Sale by all Booksellers or will be sent postpaid on receipt of price

A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

52 Duane Street

New York

Copyright 1896, 1897, 1905

BY STREET & SMITH

THE GOLDEN KEY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PAGE

PROLOGUE.

A RESPONSIVE HEART.

3

CHAPTER I.

SIXTEEN YEARS AFTER.

16

CHAPTER II.

“WHATEVER STANDS IN MY PATH!”

28

CHAPTER III.

LOVE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.

39

CHAPTER IV.

“I WOULD STAKE MY FORTUNE.”

51

CHAPTER V.

THE BANK ON SUNDAY MORNING.

61

CHAPTER VI.

GERALD SUFFERS AN INDIGNITY.

71

CHAPTER VII.

MR. BREWSTER’S WILL.

81

CHAPTER VIII.

EVIDENCE BY MR. PLUM.

92

CHAPTER IX.

AN IMPORTANT WITNESS.

102

CHAPTER X.

A THRILLING ADVENTURE.

112

CHAPTER XI.

“I DID NOT MEAN TO BETRAY MYSELF.”

121

CHAPTER XII.

ALLISON AND HER GUARDIAN.

132

CHAPTER XIII.

“BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS.”

144

CHAPTER XIV.

A TERRIBLE REVELATION.

155

CHAPTER XV.

AN APPALLING SECRET.

166

CHAPTER XVI.

DO YOUR WORST.

177

CHAPTER XVII.

WRECK OF THE LIMITED.

189

CHAPTER XVIII.

A CRUSHING TROUBLE.

199

CHAPTER XIX.

GERALD MEETS HUBBARD.

210

CHAPTER XX.

THE SECRET OF THE FOOT-REST.

221

CHAPTER XXI.

THE WINCHESTER HEIRLOOM.

232

THE GOLDEN KEY.

PROLOGUE.

A RESPONSIVE HEART.

“Nannie, I cannot bear it!”

“Hush, Alice; you must not give way to such wild grief—the excitement will be very bad for you.”

“But what will Adam say? It will be a terrible blow; his heart was so set upon the fulfilment of his hopes, and now——”

A heart-broken wail completed the sentence as the pale, beautiful woman, resting upon the snowy pillows of an old-fashioned canopied bed, covered her face with her delicate hands and fell to sobbing with a wild sorrow which shook her slight frame from head to foot.

“Alice! Alice! don’t! Adam will come home to find that he has lost both wife and child if you do not try to control yourself.”

The latter speaker, a tall, muscular woman, with a kindly but resolute face, which bespoke a strong character as well as a tender heart, knelt beside the bed, and laid her cheek against the colorless one upon the pillow with motherly tenderness and sympathy. But her appealing words only seemed to increase the violence of the invalid’s grief, and, with a look of anxiety sweeping over her countenance, the woman arose, after a moment, when, pouring a few drops from a bottle into a spoon, she briefly informed her charge that it was time for her medicine.

The younger woman meekly swallowed the potion, although her bosom continued to heave with sobs, and tears still rained over her hueless cheeks.

Her companion sat down near her, an expression of patient endurance on her face, and in the course of fifteen or twenty minutes she was rewarded by seeing the invalid fall into a profound slumber.

“Thank Heaven!” she muttered at last, with a sigh of relief, “there will be an interval of rest, but I dread the awakening.”

Miss Nancy Porter was a spinster, upward of forty, and one of those stanch, reliable women who always seem like a bulwark of strength, and equal to any emergency.

She was, by profession, a trained nurse, having, many years previous, served her time in the Massachusetts General Hospital, of Boston, after which her experience was wide and varied, winning for herself encomiums from both surgeons and physicians, and the unbounded confidence of those who were fortunate enough to secure her services in the sick-room.

She had her own home in one of the suburban towns of Boston, where she lived with her one trusty maid in a quiet, restful way, when her services were not in demand elsewhere.

It was into this peaceful home that her only sister had come, about a month previous, to remain until the return of her husband, who had been called abroad upon urgent business.

Adam Brewster was a wealthy banker of New York City.

He was several years older than sweet Alice Porter, whom he had met and fallen in love with some two years previous, and who had been his idolized wife for little more than twelve months.

It had been a great trial that he could not take his dear one to Europe with him; but her physician utterly prohibited such a trip for the young wife, and thus she had gone to spend the interval of her husband’s absence with her sister, in the home of her childhood, and where a tiny little girl was born into the world, only to breathe faintly for a few moments, and them slip away into the great unknown.

For hours after the birth and death of her little one, Alice Brewster had lain in a state of unconsciousness, which caused the heart of her faithful nurse and sister to quake with fear.

But, when consciousness returned, and the youthful mother called for her little one, and she was obliged to tell her that she was childless, her heart almost failed her again, in view of the bitter disappointment and violent sorrow which once more threatened to snap the slender thread of life.

She could only temporarily quell these outbursts of grief by administering powerful narcotics to induce sleep and oblivion, with the hope that calmness and resignation would come with returning strength.

On the afternoon of the third day the storm, which had prevented the sending of a doctor, cleared, and about five o’clock Miss Porter went down-stairs into the kitchen, where her servant was quietly engaged with her domestic duties.

“Sarah, I’m going to town to see Doctor Bowman,” she remarked, in grave, subdued tones, an anxious expression in her mild, gray eyes. “Mrs. Brewster is sleeping, but I want you to go up and sit by her until I return, which won’t be very long, and if she wakes, give her two teaspoonfuls of the medicine in the glass that is on the mantel.”

“Yes, marm,” responded Sarah, as she changed her calico apron for a white one, preparatory to going up-stairs.

“And—if any one comes in,” pursued Miss Porter thoughtfully, “tell them nothing! you can simply say I am out, and Mrs. Brewster is lying down. I don’t want any gossip started. I’ll tell my own story.”

“Yes, marm,” said Sarah again, and her mistress hurried away.

She was just in time to catch the five-twenty express for town, where she arrived just on the stroke of six, when she proceeded directly to the waiting-room to leave her waterproof and umbrella with the woman in charge, while she made a visit to her physician.

She did not find her in the outer room, and so went on into the ladies’ private siting-room, which she found to be empty, quite an unusual occurrence, although doubtless the recent tempest was the reason why so few people were abroad.

At least Miss Porter thought the place was empty, until a faint sound greeted her ear, when she started forward and peeped around a corner, to find only an animated bundle wrapped in a gray shawl lying upon the great square table standing there.

“It’s a baby!” muttered Miss Porter in astonishment, “but where on earth is the mother?”

Prompted by both curiosity and interest, she went to the child, and, parting the shawl, which was closely wrapped about it, discovered an infant, which her practised eye told her could not be over a week old, if, indeed, it had seen as many days as that.

Her first thought was that the mother, or whoever had the child in charge, had left it just for the moment sleeping upon the table; then, suddenly, a terrible shock, which set every nerve in her body quivering with a painful thrill, went through her as she caught sight of a note that had been pinned to the fine flannel blanket that was wrapped about the infant under the shawl.

“Good heavens! it is an abandoned baby!” she breathed, as she mechanically but tenderly gathered it into her strong arms and tried to hush it upon her breast.

Evidently, the child had been drugged, for it dropped off to sleep almost immediately, and then Miss Porter, with trembling fingers and two scarlet spots upon her cheeks, denoting great mental excitement, detached the note from the blanket, and, opening it, read:

“Will some kind woman take this child, or see that it finds a good home where it will be well reared? Nothing but direst necessity compels her abandonment. She is well and honorably born, and yet relentless fate makes her an outcast from her own kindred. A peculiar-shaped golden key, in the form of a pin, is fastened to her clothing—it is her only heritage. Will whoever responds to this appeal insert in an early issue of the Boston Transcript under the head of personals, the following: ‘X. Y. Z.—The golden key has unlocked a responsive heart,’ and relieve the writer of this of a heavy burden?”

“H’m!” ejaculated Miss Porter, as she refolded the note, and began to look for the golden key.

She found it pinned to the yoke of the child’s dainty dress—an oddly fashioned trinket, the thumb-piece ornamented with a small pansy, in the heart of which there flashed a tiny but flawless diamond.

“Well! for once I have had a genuine adventure in my plodding, practical life!” the woman muttered to herself. “Everything about this child shows that she was born of a wealthy mother—some rich girl, maybe, whose good name was more to her than the life and welfare of her own flesh and blood. Oh, dear, what a world it is! Those who yearn for these little ones are deprived of them, while there is no place, no love for others. It is a beautiful babe, too,” she continued, bending over the little sleeper and noting the soft, curling rings of glossy brown hair on the small head, the delicate, regular features of the little face, and the dainty, perfect hands that were folded on the gently heaving breast. “Poor little waif! what shall I do with you?” she concluded, with a long-drawn, regretful sigh.

Then she sat suddenly erect, her face becoming almost as rigid as that of a statue, while she scarcely seemed to breathe, so absorbed had she become in her own startled reflections.

“Nancy Porter, I wonder if you could manage it?—I wonder if you dare do it?” she breathed at last, with lips in which there was not an atom of color. “Alice would never survive another such tax upon her delicate constitution; Adam Brewster would never be content without an heir to his great fortune. Well, I’m going to try it, and save her heart from breaking.”

With a resolute gleam in her gray eyes, a settled purpose in every line of her strong, honest face, she began to wrap the child in the soft, warm shawl which she had partially removed, paying no attention to the woman in charge—who at that moment came into the room and began to busily brandish a great feather duster—although she was uncomfortably conscious that she was being regarded with a curious, questioning glance.

But Miss Nancy Porter had run many a difficult gauntlet, and faced many emergencies, during her checkered life, and her stanch heart and brave front did not fail her now.

Having arranged everything about her charge to her satisfaction, she arose and deliberately walked from the room, passed out of the nearest door of the one beyond, and, joining the hurrying crowd that surging toward the outward-bound trains, without giving another thought to the errand which had brought her to town, found herself just in season to board a return local.

She did not see in the car a person whom she knew; yet, knowing that there might be acquaintances on the train, she decided to leave it at a station two miles below her own town, and about a mile and a half from her home, which was located between the two villages.

It was dark when she alighted, and it was with a deep sigh of satisfaction that she slipped away in the gloom.

She did not meet a single person on the way—it was a lonely road, with only a few scattered farmhouses to be passed—and arrived at her own door just as the old-fashioned clock of a previous generation standing in the hall solemnly tolled off the hour of eight.

A glance in at the kitchen window as she passed had told her that Sarah was still upstairs with her patient, and, passing softly around to the front door, which she noiselessly opened with a latchkey, she walked through the “best room” to the “parlor bedroom,” where she laid her charge upon the bed, thankful for the potency of the drug which still held its senses locked in slumber, and glad to have her aching arms relieved of their burden.

Then, closing both doors after her, she passed up-stairs to the sick-room, removing her bonnet and wrap as she went, when she dismissed Sarah to her interrupted work in the kitchen below, and then sat down to rest and await the awakening of the frail sleeper upon the bed.

An hour later, Miss Porter suddenly appeared in her bright, cheerful kitchen, bearing a beautiful babe in her arms, while a tender expression seemed to have softened and illumined her usually grave, almost austere face.

“Goodness sakes, alive!” exclaimed Sarah, springing to her feet, with a startled air, her wild eyes fastened upon the infant.

“Hush!” said Miss Porter authoritatively. “Has any one been here since I left home?”

“Not a soul,” said the girl, but with still gaping eyes and mouth.

“Good!” returned the mistress in a satisfied tone; “and now, Sarah, you are to remember that a baby girl was born here on Monday night, October 2. No one save you and I and Mrs. Brewster know of the fact as yet; but I shall have it recorded to-morrow morning, when a letter will also be mailed to Mr. Brewster, announcing that he has a fine little daughter.”

“But——” began Sarah, looking dazed and troubled.

“There are no ‘buts,’ Sarah,” curtly interposed Miss Porter; “the last forty-eight hours must become a blank; you are to know nothing, except that on the second of this month my sister gave birth to a beautiful little girl, and that both mother and child are doing well. I am sure I can trust you,” concluded the woman, looking the girl squarely in the eyes.

“Yes, marm,” was the meek response, and Miss Porter knew that torture would never elicit the wilful betrayal of her secret after that promise was given.

“That is right,” she said briskly, the stern lines of her face relaxing again; “and now you may take the baby while I prepare some milk for her.”

The next day but one there appeared in the Boston Transcript the following paragraph:

“X. Y. Z.—The golden key has unlocked a responsive heart.”

Three weeks later a fair, sweet woman might have been seen driving through the street of F—— in an elegant carriage, which, with coachman and footman, had been ordered from New York, while by her side there sat a buxom, good-natured nurse, with a thriving baby on her lap.

“What a lovely child!” was the tribute of every one who saw the dainty, blue-eyed little girl, who now bore the name of Allison Porter Brewster, and then wondered to see the grave, yearning look that involuntarily came into the young mother’s eyes, even while her lips smiled at the praise bestowed upon her darling.

Meantime, messages of love and gratitude, together with costly gifts, had come across the ocean from the happy father, who was all impatience to return to his treasures.

Another month passed, and the Brewsters were once more settled in their elegant city home, where each succeeding week only served to develop the charms of the little heiress and to endear her to the hearts of her parents.

Early the following spring Miss Nancy Porter’s faithful Sarah was stricken with fever, which proved to be a long and tedious illness, during which she raved continually about stolen children and some dreadful secret which oppressed her.

Miss Porter was unremitting in her care of the trusty girl; she allowed no one to share her care of her, and when she died, in spite of the best of nursing and medical attendance, the woman shed sincere, regretful tears over her.

“I suppose it had to be,” she said sorrowfully, on her return to her lonely home after the burial. “Sarah was a good girl, and I’m sorry to lose her; but”—with suddenly whitening lips—“there’s one less in the world who knows that secret.”

The number was again reduced when, a few months later, Nancy Porter herself was laid to rest in the “Porter lot,” and the wife of Adam Brewster was left to bear her burden alone.

That it was an insupportable burden was revealed some three years afterward, when, following a gradual decline, she laid it down, after having written out a full confession of the deception of which she had been guilty, and humbly begged her husband’s pardon for having yielded to a temptation that had proved stronger than her principles.

This revelation Adam Brewster did not find until after she had been in her grave many weeks, when he finally gathered courage to examine a box which she had told him, with almost her last breath, contained something of great importance.

It came upon him with the force of a thunderbolt—he was almost paralyzed with grief and dismay when he read his wife’s letter, and found the proof of its contents in the articles of infant’s clothing which she had preserved—in the note which she had pinned upon the dress of the abandoned child, and the golden key, which was her only heritage.

It was a terrible blow! His darling—his idol, in whom all his fondest hopes were centered—not his own child! It could not be possible, for no father could so worship the offspring of another.

The struggle between love, grief, disappointment, and indignation was long and bitter; but love finally triumphed over all.

“No one need ever know it,” he told himself, but with a twinge of keenest pain in view of his own knowledge. “She is mine—I claim her as my very own by the love I bear her; no one shall ever suspect the truth—she shall never learn it, and thus I shall never be in danger of losing her. I will destroy every evidence of the fact, and then the secret will be buried in my own heart. And, ah, me! forgive my dear lost wife for her deception I must, in view of that other secret which I have withheld from her.”

The man fully intended to destroy all evidence that Allison Porter was not his own child, but, thinking that he might wish to examine the contents of the box more carefully in a few days—after he had recovered somewhat from the shock he had received—he put it away, with some jewels belonging to his wife, in a secret compartment in the vault in his bank, where, amid the press of business and of many cares, it was forgotten; or, if not forgotten, neglected for many years.

CHAPTER I.

SIXTEEN YEARS AFTER.

“Papa! papa! Where is my father?”

The speaker was a charming young girl, of about sixteen years, who came one morning tripping into the cool, private office of Adam Brewster.

Without, the day was hot and sultry, but Miss Allison Brewster might have just emerged from some shady sylvan retreat, to judge from her fresh, dainty appearance as she paused in an exquisite pose, upon the threshold of the doorway, which made her seem, for the moment, a beautiful picture painted by a master hand.

She was clad in a fine, crisp lawn, sprigged with forget-me-nots, and trimmed with delicate lace and fetching knots of blue ribbon, all of which was just suited to her flawless pink-and-white complexion, her sapphire eyes, and the gleaming gold of her abundant hair. Her pretty head was crowned with a broad-brimmed hat of white chip, whereon nodded and swayed, with every graceful movement of the little lady, three costly white ostrich-plumes, which were fastened in place by the same number of pale, pink roses and a broad band of rich satin ribbon.

But Adam Brewster was not in. The only occupant of the place was the office boy—Gerald Winchester—who was seated behind a tall desk, engaged in copying some letters for his employer.

He was, perhaps, nineteen years of age, and rather boyish in appearance, but with a face “to swear by,” with its clear, steadfast, honest eyes, its clean-cut features, its frank, genial smile, and yet possessing certain lines and characteristics which bespoke high moral principles and great strength of purpose.

He sprang to his feet at the sound of that eager voice calling “papa,” a quick flush leaping into his cheeks, an intense, peculiar light into his eyes, and, approaching the young girl, with a courteous bow, observed in a quiet tone of respect:

“Mr. Brewster went out a few moments ago. Can I do anything for you, Al—Miss Brewster?”

A look of astonishment swept over the fair maiden’s face, and for an instant she made no reply. Then her ruby lips parted and a peal of silvery laughter rang through the room, while her vivacious face dimpled and gleamed with irrepressible merriment.

“‘Miss Brewster!’” she repeated, with a saucy toss of her head, that set every spotless plume upon her hat nodding a playful reproof at her companion for his unprecedented formality; for they had known each other for years, and, hitherto, had always addressed each other by their Christian names. “Why, Gerald; how formal! Since when have you become so strictly ceremonious?”

“Since Mr. Brewster announced a day or two ago, when some one spoke of you by your given name, that hereafter you were to be addressed as Miss Brewster,” the young man responded, flushing slightly, although a smile of sympathetic amusement curled his own expressive lips.

“Did papa say that?” questioned Allison, with a shrug of her graceful shoulders. “What nonsense! Why, I have been running in and out of the bank ever since I was able to walk, and it seems absurd putting on such airs, when everybody knows me so well.”

“Still, you are a young lady now, and it does seem a trifle familiar to address you as if you were only a child,” Gerald thoughtfully observed.

Allison stood considering the matter for a moment; then she gravely remarked:

“I say, Gerald, I shall not mind the change very much from the others; but,” with an independent toss of her pretty head, “I won’t be ‘Miss Brewster’ to you.”

Gerald shot a quick, bright glance at the speaker.

“Thank you—I am sure I appreciate this mark of your esteem,” he said, in tones that were a trifle tremulous, “but,” a roguish twinkle in his fine, dark eyes, “how about obeying orders from one’s chief?”

“Well, perhaps you’ll have to do as papa wishes, when you are here with the other clerks; but, Gerald”—appealingly, yet half-defiantly—“when—when we are by ourselves, I—just won’t stand it; it will spoil all our nice times, and make us too stiff and prim for anything. Do you want me to call you Mr. Winchester?”

“I am sure I do not,” he answered, laughing at her injured air.

“Well, but I shall—if you go to playing at formality with me”—this with a charming little pout as she threw herself into a chair, seized a fan from the desk near her, and began to sway it back and forth with piquant grace, while her companion watched her with admiring interest.

“I am sorry papa is out,” she resumed, after a minute, and apparently regarding the other topic as settled, “for I want some money. I suppose I can have everything charged, but I do so enjoy having a lot of nice, fresh, crisp bills in my own hands to pay for what I buy. Will he be in soon, do you think?”

“I am sure I cannot tell,” replied the young man, glancing at the clock, then back, with an expression of yearning tenderness, to the graceful figure in the chair opposite him.

His color came and went, and his heart was beating heavily with an emotion which he was striving to conceal, for he feared that it would never do to betray to his proud employer’s daughter that he had dared to love her with all the strength of his intensely strong nature.

At least, he would not presume to betray his secret for a long while yet; perhaps, if fortune’s wheel should some time turn in his favor, he might dare to confess his affection for the lovely heiress, provided she remained the sweet and unaffected girl she had always hitherto been.

Gerald Winchester was no ordinary young man.

Confided to the care of an aunt, Miss Honor Winchester—almost from the hour of his birth, shortly after which his mother had died—he had been reared in very limited circumstances, although Miss Winchester was a well-educated and cultivated woman, and had given him careful training, both morally and intellectually.

She had a small annuity, which, as the boy grew older, she found insufficient for their mutual needs, and, desirous of doing her utmost for her charge, she resolved to leave the small town in Rhode Island, which for many years had been her home, and go to New York, where she hoped to get something to do to increase her slender income.

The move was made, and Miss Winchester, being an attractive, sensible woman, found plenty of work as seamstress in wealthy families; thus she was enabled to send Gerald to school until he was fourteen years of age, and had entered the second year of the high-school course.

But, one morning, the lad had found his best, and almost only friend, lying cold and still in her bed. She had died of heart-disease during the night, and thus he was left alone and destitute in the world, for the woman’s annuity ceased with her life.

The boy broke up their home, where they had been so quietly happy and comfortable for several years, selling off all their furniture, with the exception of an old-fashioned cricket, which his aunt had, upon one or two occasions, charged him never to part with, since it was a precious heirloom, having been brought from England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth by a remote ancestor.

It was a queer-looking, rather clumsy affair, of solid mahogany, having claw feet tipped with brass, its surface upholstered with some bright, silk patchwork, which Miss Winchester had made to replace a former defaced covering.

Gerald had almost a mind to let the thing go with the other household goods, in spite of his aunt’s wish, for he felt that it would never be anything but a burden to him; but he finally stowed it away in the bottom of a trunk, which contained all he possessed in the world, and removing to a small, cheap room, started forth to seek a situation where he could earn his own living.

At first he was cash-boy in one of the large stores of the city; later he was office boy for an eminent physician, and finally drifted into Adam Brewster’s banking-house, where he had remained until now, working slowly and steadily upward, gaining his employer’s confidence and favor, until he had proved himself so capable, trustworthy, and faithful that the man regarded him almost in the light of a confidential clerk.

From time to time the banker, pitying his homeless and friendless condition, had invited him to his own home, where he had spent many a delightful hour with Allison, who, from the first, had conceived a strong friendship for the handsome, manly fellow.

For a long time Mr. Brewster did not once think that any serious result would be likely to follow this “boy-and-girl acquaintance.” Allison, his idolized daughter, was happy to have Gerald come to tea; to drive with her in the park on Saturday afternoons or holidays; to have him to dinner with them now and then on Sundays, and he was ever indulgent to her lightest wish.

But of late—during the last five or six months—he had suddenly awakened to the fear that there might be danger ahead if these relations were continued.

He had become very fond of Gerald—he knew him to be a noble, whole-hearted, high-principled fellow; but he was not to be considered, for a moment, as a possible son-in-law. No struggling, plodding clerk who had his fortune to make by his own unaided efforts would be a suitable mate for the banker’s heiress, whose million, or more, in prospect, must be matched by at least an equal amount and a position as enviable and secure as her own.

So, during the last half-year, Gerald had received no invitations to the banker’s princely home—there was always some excuse of extra office work or special and important errands whenever Allison proposed his coming, and thus she saw him only when, occasionally, she slipped into the bank upon some pretense. This was the first time for months that they had been alone in each other’s presence, and Allison, making the most of her opportunity, gave herself up to the pleasure of the moment, and chatted, girllike, of anything and everything that came into her pretty head.

Gerald, also, thawing out beneath her sunny influence, dropped the formality which he had assumed upon her entrance, and, during the half-hour that followed, feasted his heart upon her beauty and the charm of her companionship.

Into this little banquet of love there suddenly intruded a man of perhaps thirty-five years—a tall, gaunt figure, with a slight stoop in his shoulders, but faultlessly attired. His face was thin, and absolutely colorless, save for the faint tinge of red in his lips and the cold blue of his eyes, which contrasted strangely with the intense black of his hair and mustache.

His eyes lighted with sudden fire as they fell upon the dainty figure and bright beauty of Allison Brewster.

“Ah, good morning, Miss Allison,” he remarked, in bland, oily tones, his thin lips relaxing into a smile that revealed a ghastly row of dead-white teeth beneath the black mustache. “This is an unexpected pleasure. I do not need to inquire if you are well—your blooming appearance speaks for itself.”

“Yes, thank you, I am well,” the girl quietly replied, but without bestowing a second glance upon him.

The man then turned to Gerald, a vicious smile just curling the corners of his mouth.

“Ahem! Winchester, here is a message that must go immediately to the Second National Bank.”

“Is it imperative?” Gerald questioned.

“Yes; it must go at once.”

“I am sorry, Mr. Hubbard, but Mr. Brewster is out, and, as you know, I am not allowed to leave the office during his absence,” the young man replied.

Mr. Hubbard frowned, and then his gaze wandered again to Allison, with an eager look.

“Yes, I know that is the rule,” he said, “but you will have to break it for once. The bank closes at twelve to-day, being Saturday, and the message must be delivered before that. Miss Brewster will doubtless excuse you,” he added, with the suspicion of a sneer, “and I will entertain her during your absence, or until Mr. Brewster returns.”

Gerald glanced at the clock, and a troubled expression flitted over his face, but after another moment of thought, he said quietly but firmly:

“I would like to oblige you, Mr. Hubbard, but Mr. Brewster’s orders to me are imperative. I can, under no circumstances, leave the office during his absence.”

“But I tell you this is an unusual case,” said the man impatiently; “there is no messenger in just now—we are very busy to-day, and you will have to go.”

“It is impossible—I cannot leave my post without orders direct from Mr. Brewster,” Gerald responded, an unmistakable note of determination in his tones; “you will have to ask one of the clerks in the other room to take the message.”

John Hubbard turned sharply upon his heel, muttering something under his breath, and abruptly left the room.

Allison suddenly threw down her fan and shrugged her shapely shoulders.

“Ugh!” she said, shivering slightly. “I don’t need that any more—I always get a chill whenever that man comes near me.”

Gerald smiled, yet he looked somewhat disconcerted, for, of late, he had been conscious of a growing barrier between himself and this strangely clever man, who was an expert accountant, a talented lawyer, a director of the bank, and one at whose touch everything seemed to turn into gold.

“But Mr. Hubbard is very valuable to Mr. Brewster and the bank,” he said, in reply to Allison’s remark; “he inspects all accounts, manages all law business, and has recently been made one of the directors of the bank.”

“Is that so?” queried the young girl, with some surprise.

“Yes; he owns quite a good deal of stock.”

But Allison Brewster was not much interested to know who owned stock in the bank; business had little attraction for her beyond its results, which, of course, were a necessary factor in her life, while John Hubbard and his affairs were of no moment whatever to her.

“Gerald!” she exclaimed, after a moment, and abruptly changing the subject, “I almost forgot a part of my errand here. Papa is going to let me give a lawn-party before we go to Newport—and I am going to send out my invitations for two weeks from to-day—I set it for Saturday because you are at liberty so much earlier on that day. Will you come?”

Gerald’s eyes glowed, and the color mounted to his temples at this evidence of her thought for him. His voice thrilled with repressed emotion as he replied:

“That was certainly very kind of you, Al—Miss——”

“Take care, Gerald!” suddenly interposed the fair girl, as she raised a finger menacingly at him. “I will not be ‘missed’ by you—at least”—with a gleam of roguishness in her dancing eyes—“until I am gone for the summer, and then you may miss me as much as you like. See?”

And, detaching one of the three beautiful pink rosebuds from her corsage, she playfully tossed it at him, and with such unerring aim that it brushed his cheek with its fragrant petals, and then lodged upon his shoulder. Gerald captured it with a hand that tingled in every nerve.

“Yes, Allison, I see,” he said, smiling into the piquant face. “Thanks for this souvenir—I never saw anything more lovely.”

But he was not looking at the rose as he spoke—he was gazing straight into the blue eyes of beautiful Allison Brewster.

“Now will you promise to come to my party?” she asked, rising to go.

“Yes, if——”

“‘If!’” she repeated sharply, a quick flush mantling her face.

“If there is no extra work to be done and I can get off,” he explained.

“Of course you can get off on Saturday afternoon,” said the girl impatiently; then added appealingly: “Gerald, you must come—it will just spoil the whole thing for me if you do not. Now, good-by—tell papa I could not wait any longer. I have an appointment with my dressmaker at one, and I have a lot of shopping to do before that.”

And nodding a smiling adieu to Gerald, she tripped away, while the young man turned to a window and watched her out of sight, a tremulous smile upon his lips, a tender gleam in his handsome brown eyes.

CHAPTER II.

“WHATEVER STANDS IN MY PATH!”

“Did she really mean it, I wonder? Would it spoil her party for her if I should not go?” mused Gerald Winchester, as the daintily ruffled skirts of Allison Brewster disappeared around a corner and his glance shifted to the lovely rosebud which he still held, “or is it just her sweet, impulsive way of saying pleasant things to make one feel comfortable and happy?”

As he concluded this soliloquy, he raised the bud to his lips and bestowed a light caress upon it.

At the same instant a step behind him caused him to turn suddenly, to find himself again confronted by the sneering face of Mr. John Hubbard.

“Very pretty! very interesting, truly; but rather a dangerous sentiment, and presumptuous, as well, for a boy to indulge in, with only fifteen dollars a week,” the man sarcastically observed.

Then without giving Gerald time to reply, had he been so disposed, he added sharply:

“Have you copied those papers relating to the Wynn estate?”

“Yes, I have just finished them,” the young man returned, as he took a package from his desk and passed it to his companion, who observed that his hand was trembling and that he had grown very white about the mouth, while there was a gleam of fire in his eyes which betrayed that he was not lacking in spirit, although he was able to hold it under perfect control.

As John Hubbard took the papers he managed to brush to the floor the rosebud which Gerald had laid upon the desk.

“Take care, please,” said the young man, and stooping eagerly to recover his treasure.

But he was not quick enough, for the other ruthlessly set his foot upon it, crushing it flat and destroying all its beauty.

For a minute the boy and the man stood looking straight into each other’s eyes, their faces as colorless as the collars about their necks.

“That is typical of what happens to everything that stands in my way; so beware! young beggar, that you do not covet what is beyond your reach,” said John Hubbard menacingly.

Gerald Winchester’s hands were clenched so fiercely that the nail of every finger turned purple; but his bearing was that of a hero who could face a cannon’s mouth and never flinch.

Presently he drew in a long, deep breath, his hands relaxed; then he said, as quietly as if he were making the most commonplace observation imaginable:

“Nothing is unattainable, Mr. Hubbard, to him who is determined to win.”

“Aha! say you so? You speak with the impulse and inexperience of youth; but, look there, and—be warned,” sneered his companion, as, lifting his foot he made a gesture indicating the mutilated bud.

Then turning abruptly, he left the office, while Gerald, with a ghastly face and trembling hands, stooped to recover the ruined flower.

He tenderly gathered up every discolored leaf and petal, arranging them neatly upon a sheet of blank paper, which he carefully folded and placed within an envelope.

“It shall be my mascot,” he muttered, with a determined gleam in his eyes, as he put it in an inside pocket of his vest, “and as sure as I live, Mr. John Hubbard, you will find me no mean rival. I will yet stand where I can ask for what I want and not be accused of being a fortune-hunter, either.”

Mr. Brewster came in, a few minutes later, and Gerald’s thoughts were turned into other channels, although throughout the day he was never for a moment unconscious of that bruised and discolored bud which lay so near his heart.

Two weeks slipped rapidly by, and the day set for Allison Brewster’s lawn-party dawned clear and beautiful.

Gerald had, meantime, received by mail a formal card of invitation with the words “Come early” delicately penciled in one corner, and he had been looking eagerly forward to the occasion, although he said nothing to any one of his intention to be present.

In his heart he knew that Mr. Brewster, in spite of his own fondness for him, would not approve of the existence of any tender relations between him and his peerless daughter, and he greatly feared, should he intimate that he had been bidden to the approaching festival, that some extra work would be forthcoming to keep him away.

While he would not wilfully betray the confidence of his employer, he, at the same time, believed that he had a perfect right to love Allison, since, morally and intellectually, he was her equal, if not her superior; while he felt sure, so sanguine is youth, that he would eventually work his way up to a position no less enviable than hers—both socially and financially.

“I will take no unfair advantage,” he said to himself, “but I will make the most of my opportunities; and, if by and by, Allison should respond to my affection, I will claim her right to act for herself, and my right to abide by her choice, and”—with a flash of fire in his dark eyes—“I am no fragile bud to be crushed by the heel of any man’s boot.”

Having settled matters thus in his own mind, Gerald looked eagerly forward to the fulfilment of his promise to Allison.

On Saturday morning, however, John Hubbard presented himself before Mr. Brewster—Gerald being out on some errand—and stated that a matter of importance in Jersey City needed prompt attention, and it would be necessary to despatch some trustworthy person to deliver certain valuable documents into the hands of the party whom they most concerned.

“I would go myself,” said the wily expert and confidential lawyer, “but I have to prepare for that case that is coming off on Monday, and I cannot attend to both matters.”

“Very well, send whom you like to Jersey,” said the banker briefly.

“I think perhaps that Winchester might go—that is, if you can spare him; he is reliable and as prompt as the clock,” said the crafty schemer, who, for two weeks, had borne this thing in mind for the very purpose of keeping Gerald from the lawn-party.

“Yes, I can spare him,” replied Mr. Brewster, “and you are right—Gerald is as true as steel, and can be trusted with any commission.”

John Hubbard’s white teeth gleamed for a moment beneath his mustache in a sinister smile at this high tribute to the young man; then remarking that he would make up the package, he disappeared from the room, chuckling to himself as he went.

A half hour later he took the parcel to Gerald, who with difficulty concealed his disappointment when he was told what was required of him, for he knew that it would be utterly impossible for him to go to Jersey City to perform his errand and return in season to keep his promise to Allison; at least, it would be evening before he could reach Yonkers, where Mr. Brewster’s country home was located, and the party would be over by that time.

He felt very sure from the mocking gleam in his eye as he handed the paper to him, that John Hubbard had cunningly contrived this strategy for the express purpose of making him miss the pleasure he was anticipating. But he must obey orders, and he departed upon his mission without a word of protest.

He first made his way to a florist’s, however, to order a dainty basket of forget-me-nots sent by express to Allison, inserting in the box with them a card upon which he hastily wrote the following:

“New York, 11 A. M.—I am at this moment unexpectedly sent out of town upon important business, and so cannot go to Y., as I promised. Am very sorry, but my offering will prove that I am not unmindful of the occasion.G. W.”

Having seen his tribute despatched, Gerald went on his way with what grace he could muster, although a feeling of bitterness against the marplot of his pleasure rankled sorely in his heart.

“What can it matter to him whether I am fond of Allison or not?” he mused, as he boarded a car for the ferry. “He is a man twice her age, and he cannot be so deluded as to think that she would ever marry him. It would be monstrous,” and a mocking laugh broke from him at the thought and the remembrance of what Allison had said about “getting a chill,” whenever John Hubbard came near her.

Nevertheless, at that very moment John Hubbard was seated in the private office of Adam Brewster, making a formal proposal for the hand of the banker’s daughter.

“You know I am a man of few words,” he remarked, coming to the point at once, as he took the chair his employer indicated, “and so I am here to confess to you, Mr. Brewster, that I love your daughter and to ask your permission to win her for my wife.”

The banker regarded the man in speechless astonishment as he paused, after making the above startling declaration. It was a full minute before he could recover himself sufficiently to reply.

“You want to marry my daughter!” he at last burst forth, with unconscious emphasis upon the pronoun. “Good Heaven! she is only a child!”

“I know that she is very young, sir, and, of course, I do not expect your sanction to a union under two or three years,” John Hubbard returned, shooting a searching look at his companion from his crafty eyes. “I simply want your consent to such an arrangement, and your influence in my favor with Miss Allison——”

“But——” began Mr. Brewster, with white lips and an evident effort at self-control.

“Believe me,” interposed his companion. “I appreciate your affectionate desires for her, and realize that you aspire to an assured position for her; but I believe I can realize even your most extravagant wishes for her in that respect. You know something of my circumstances, Mr. Brewster, but I have to tell you that my interest in this bank, my estates in New Jersey and Virginia are but a small part of my wealth. Let me ask you to examine this memoranda, and then possibly you will realize that my offer is not one to be despised,” said John Hubbard, as he took a small book from his pocket and passed it to his companion.

Mr. Brewster took it mechanically and silently examined the pages for several minutes, his face growing strangely grave and rigid as he did so.

Finally he lifted his glance to the expert’s face.

“John, I had no idea you were so rich a man,” he observed.

“Will I do for a son-in-law?” queried the man flippantly, and with a little smile of triumph.

“That is a difficult question to answer,” said Mr. Brewster, flushing a deep crimson with the effort he made to restrain his impulse to kick the man from his presence for his vulgarity and presumption, for, clever as he had become as a business man, he was possessed of no natural refinement, and the banker would far rather have seen Allison immured in a convent than the wife of such a man, useful as he was in certain ways.

“Why is it a difficult question?” sharply demanded the would-be suitor.

“Well, first and foremost, Allison is far too young to have any matrimonial ideas instilled into her mind; she has two years yet to go to school——”

“I told you I would wait—I expected to wait,” interposed John Hubbard impatiently, and with a fiery gleam in his eyes. “I have already waited and toiled years, with this one hope in view—for I have loved the child ever since she was a little girl—strange as it may seem—and a few years more will not matter so very much, provided I have your consent and influence to back me. Meantime, I shall be growing richer,” he concluded, as if that were the one inducement to be considered.

“But Allison’s wishes must be considered,” said the banker, a trifle nervously. He could not bind himself to sell his darling, and yet he knew that this man would make a dangerous foe; there were certain reasons why he did not wish to excite his enmity. “At least,” he added, “I cannot force her affections—she must choose her own husband.”

“Ah! do you intend to allow her to do that? Suppose she should love and choose a poor man—a common clerk, for instance, with a mere pittance?” and the expert’s eyes gleamed maliciously.

“Humph! Ah! well—I don’t think I could quite agree to that,” coldly responded the banker. “The man who marries Allison must at least be able to match her fortune dollar for dollar.”

“I can very nearly do that now.”

“I see you can, John, and I own that you have been very clever—far more clever than I gave you credit for being. I cannot quite understand it. I am greatly surprised and—and, of course, am—ahem!—honored by your proposal——”

“Then be kind enough to give me some definite answer,” bluntly interposed Mr. Hubbard.

“Really, John, you must give me time—this has come upon me so unexpectedly, I am wholly unprepared to pledge myself to anything,” Mr. Brewster replied thoughtfully, and beginning to recover something of his habitual dignity.

“Very well, take time; but, meantime, give me a chance. By the way, I believe you have a lawn-party, or something of the kind, out at Lakeview to-day, do you not?”

Again Adam Brewster flushed, and he longed to show his companion the door and tell him never to come into his presence again; but, as previously intimated, there were reasons why he dared not offend him.

So, restraining his anger, he called a smile to his lips and blandly responded:

“Yes, my daughter is going to entertain some of her friends this afternoon; it will be rather a juvenile affair; but perhaps you would enjoy seeing the young folks amuse themselves; if so, come home with me and look on for a while.”

“Thank you, I shall be happy to do so,” promptly returned John Hubbard, with a vicious gleam of his ghastly teeth.

And thus it happened that just as Allison Brewster came downstairs to receive her first guests she was confronted by “the man who always gave her a chill,” and who now drove all the brightness from her face, and made her feel that her party was doubly spoiled by his presence and Gerald’s absence.

“Why couldn’t papa have sent him, instead of Gerald, on that errand rather than bring him here, where he isn’t wanted?” she said to herself, with a feeling of resentment.

But she was a well-bred little lady, and, bowing courteously to her self-invited guest, she thanked him politely for the bouquet of magnificent roses with which he presented her, but which she quietly handed to a servant, charging her to put them in water, and—never thought of them again.

But upon her breast—nestling among the cascade of filmy lace that trimmed her spotless dress of India lawn—there was a lovely cluster of forget-me-nots, which, with a thrill of delight—in spite of her disappointment at his enforced absence—she had culled from Gerald’s dainty basket, which was now standing upon the dressing-case in her room, to gladden no eyes but her own.

Almost unconsciously her hand fluttered caressingly among the delicate blossoms, even while she stood talking with John Hubbard; then, all at once, glancing out upon the lawn, she gave a little cry of joyous surprise and sprang forward to meet—Gerald himself!

CHAPTER III.

LOVE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.

The fair girl was as unaffected and as ingenuous as nature itself. She was heartily glad to see Gerald, she knew of no reason why she should not give free expression to her joy, and the flush of delighted surprise that overspread her lovely face, the welcoming light which shone in her beautiful eyes, sent a thrill of ecstasy through Gerald’s heart, while they at the same time caused a frown of annoyance and hate to settle upon John Hubbard’s brow.

Mr. Brewster was also an interested observer of Allison’s greeting of his young clerk, and he congratulated himself that they were so soon going to Newport, where the gaieties of the season, the mingling with companions in her own sphere of life, would crowd this “handsome young beggar” out of her mind.

“I am so glad that you could manage to come, after all,” Allison said, with earnest sincerity. “I was so disappointed when I received your note saying you had to go out of town. And now I want you to act as captain of the swanboat on the lake; you understand it perfectly, and I shall feel safer with you at the helm than with any one else.”

But before Gerald could reply, John Hubbard stepped forward and inquired, in a sharp, curt tone:

“How is this, young man? You surely have not had time to attend to the business upon which you were sent, and it was far too important to be entrusted to a common messenger.”

Gerald flushed hotly, more at the man’s tone and insolent bearing than at his words, but he had learned to hold himself well in hand.

“I was about to explain to Mr. Brewster,” he quietly remarked, as he turned to that gentleman without replying to the expert’s inquiry. “The package is perfectly safe, sir,” he continued, addressing his employer; “I delivered it into Mr. Bartlett’s own hands, according to your instructions. I had just reached the ferry when I met him coming off the boat, and so was not obliged to cross to Jersey City. Here is a message, acknowledging the safe delivery of the papers.”

As he concluded, he passed to Mr. Brewster a slip of paper, which was evidently a leaf that had been torn from a note-book, and upon which there had been penciled a few lines.

“It is all right, Gerald,” Mr. Brewster responded, as he read them, “and you were fortunate to meet Mr. Bartlett. If you had gone to Jersey City, you would have missed him and might have had to wait many hours before you could have obeyed the charge to deliver the papers into his own hands. And now I think, as Al—Miss Brewster suggests, you will be just the one to manage the boat for the company,” the banker concluded, in a tone that brought a quick flush to the young man’s cheek; for it seemed to imply that he was not regarded as an invited guest, but, rather, as a part of the machinery necessary to contribute to the pleasure of the company in general.

John Hubbard’s lips curled in an aggravating sneer, showing that he thoroughly appreciated the situation, and this did not tend to make Gerald’s mortification any the easier to bear.

But Allison came bravely to the rescue, and her blue eyes flashed angry defiance upon both gentlemen, while she tossed back her golden head with an independent air that spoke volumes.

“But, Gerald,” she said eagerly, as she moved nearer to him, “the boat is not to be used at present, there is to be an archery contest first, and the guests are already getting ready to dance under the pavilion. Here is my card. I want you to put your name down for the waltz-galop, and the military schottische; yes, and the minuet, too—you always do them so nicely with me. That’s it. Now, come, I want to introduce you to Annie, Cousin Charlie Manning’s wife, who is here to matronize the affair, and she has just the dearest little girl you ever saw—one of those Dresden china children that sets everybody wild. Good-by,” she added carelessly, and nodding over her shoulder at the two gentlemen as she slipped her hand within Gerald’s arm to lead him away. “I hope you will enjoy looking on at the fun.”

And with that she hurried her companion forward to a tall, graceful lady, who stood under a neighboring tree, and to whom she introduced him with as much ceremony as if he had been the son of a millionaire.

“Humph! your daughter appears to be exceedingly fond of your office boy, and vice versa,” John Hubbard observed, with an ugly frown, as he glowered after the youthful pair; “it might be wise for you to nip such a tendency in the bud.”

“Pooh! it is only a boy-and-girl fancy that doesn’t amount to anything,” the banker responded lightly, but with an uneasy gleam in his eyes.

“These boy-and-girl fancies sometimes prove to be the most lasting and dangerous,” his companion retorted, with a sullen air, as he turned to a rustic seat, where he could command a view of all that was occurring upon the lawn.

Meantime Allison was trying to obliterate the remembrance of the wound which her lover had received from her father.

“Oh, Gerald! I was so disappointed when your note came,” she exclaimed, with a heartiness which betrayed her sincerity, “but it was just lovely of you to send these,” with a shy glance at the bouquet pinned to her corsage, “and, you see, since I thought I could not have you here, I tried to console myself by wearing your flowers.”

“You honor me, Allison,” said the young man, his tones thrilling with emotion.

“Ah! but there was an element of selfishness about it,” she replied, with a saucy smile, “for I am very, very fond of these dear little forget-me-nots.”

“Yes, I know you are,” said her companion, looking fondly into the lovely, uplifted eyes, and wondering which were the bluer—they or the flowers.

“How fortunate it was that you met that Mr. Bartlett,” Allison continued, in a satisfied tone; “you were in luck, and now we will have just as good a time as we can. Oh, dear, I wish we were not going to Newport on Monday,” she concluded, with a regretful sigh.

“Why! I have always supposed that you have very gay times at Newport,” Gerald observed, with surprise.

“Yes, we do—too gay, and that is just the reason I don’t like it. Everything is so forced—everybody trying to outdo everybody else, just to gratify their vanity and be conspicuous. There isn’t any heart in it—it is all a sort of ‘Vanity Fair’ parade; no matter where you go, you are scrutinized to see if your sleeves are of the latest cut; if your skirts have the right number of gores and measure the correct number of yards; if the crown of your hat is too high or too low, or if you carry the same parasols you had last year. I do like new and pretty things, but I don’t like to be measured and dissected wherever I go, and the probable condition of Adam Brewster’s finances judged accordingly.”

Gerald laughed.

“I think it must be only women who are so well versed in such analytical processes. I am sure the other sex are always impressed by the general effect—the tout ensemble,” he said, as he ran an admiring eye over the dainty figure beside him, and thinking he had never seen Allison more lovely than she appeared at that moment.

She was clad in the finest of India lawn, trimmed with yards and yards of beautiful Valenciennes lace. A rich, white, satin ribbon girdled her waist and floated to the hem of her dress, and costly white kid boots incased her small, shapely feet. The only dash of color about her was the gleaming gold of her hair and the forget-me-nots upon her bosom.

“I reckon you are right, Gerald,” she gravely replied, “the men are more kind and sensible in their judgment. If one is tastefully dressed, and looks pretty, the cost and style do not matter so much. Ah! here is Gladys,” she interposed, as a lovely child came running to meet her. “Now, isn’t she sweet?”

Gerald paused to talk to the little one for a few moments, and then the young couple hurried away to the pavilion, where they were soon whirling among the gay dancers and conscious only of the joy of being in each other’s presence.

It was an ideal afternoon to them both, although it meant a great deal more to Gerald than to Allison, for she was just at an age to enjoy a good time for the good time’s sake; she was standing where

“The brook and river meet,”

and had not yet awakened to the fact of a line of demarcation.

She was conscious of being very fond of her young friend, of realizing that he was more congenial to her than other gentlemen of her acquaintance, but had never paused to ask the reason why. The sacred depths of her woman’s nature had never yet been sounded, as her ingenuous manner betrayed.

The two men who watched the girl from a distance, noting her every look and gesture, realized that it would need but a word or a breath to arouse the latent fire of a deep and absorbing love, and settle her fate for all time.

Both saw the danger and secretly vowed that it must and should be avoided in the future. Adam Brewster told himself that, after to-day, Allison and Gerald should not meet again, at least, until the former was the promised wife of another; while John Hubbard swore far more radical measures—swore that Gerald Winchester should be crushed—ruined; that he should be so compromised as to character and reputation that he would never dare to declare his love for Allison Brewster, or that, in the event of such a betrayal, she would spurn him from her with contempt.

The lawn-party appeared to be a grand success. Everybody seemed to enter into the spirit of the occasion with a zest and heartiness that bespoke real enjoyment. Allison had taken pains to introduce Gerald very generally to her friends, to whom he was so attentive and kind that he soon became an acknowledged favorite, a coveted partner and cavalier, and the fair little hostess was secretly very proud of him.

After a bounteous repast had been served in another pavilion, erected for that purpose, a party was formed for a row upon the lake, Gerald heading the company as “captain.”

The boat was a handsome and commodious affair shaped like a swan, and gaily canopied with red-and-white bunting. A couple of men had been hired to do the rowing, while Gerald managed the rudder.

Everything went well until the last party were returning. A short way out in the lake an artificial island had been made. Upon this there was a charming little grotto and fountain, and an arched rustic bridge spanned the water between this pretty spot and the mainland.

Just as the boat, with its merry company, was about to pass beneath the bridge, a sweet little voice from above called out gaily:

“Hurrah! Allison, hurrah! See! I’ve got a pretty flag!”

Allison, who was seated in the stern of the boat, beside Gerald, glanced up at the sound, to see little Gladys Manning leaning far out through one of the spaces of the bridge above. For once she had escaped the watchful eyes of her mother, and had run out upon the bridge “to see the pretty bird swim on the water.” Some one had given her a little silken flag, and this she was now waving merrily at Allison.

“Take care, Gladys! Back! back!” cried Allison, almost breathless from fear as the boat shot under the arch, and the child leaned out farther to watch it.

But she spoke too late, for already the little one had lost her balance, and, with a shriek of fear, fell headlong into the water and disappeared from sight.

Cries and screams now filled the air, and for a moment a panic in the boat seemed inevitable.

“Sit still, everybody, and be quiet!” cried Gerald, in ringing, authoritative tones, while at the same moment he whisked off his coat and vest and slipped off his shoes. The next instant he sprang upon the seat, then dived out of sight.

Allison sat still in her place, her hands convulsively clasped upon her breast, her face as white as her dress. She scarcely seemed to breathe, and her agonized glance was fastened upon the spot where Gerald had disappeared.

The child had not risen to the surface, and it seemed an age before the young man reappeared.

But a great sigh, that seemed like a single moan, went up from every heart when he at length came up alone, gasping for breath.

The next moment he went down again, and, after what seemed an interminable age, although barely two minutes had elapsed, he came up, and now the limp form of little Gladys was seen in his arms.

The child’s clothing had caught upon a spike in one of the supports of the bridge, and thus she had been held at the bottom of the lake.

Gerald made straight for the boat with his lifeless burden.

“Can you help me, Allison?” he questioned, as he laid hold upon the stern.

She put forth her arms, grasped the child, and with his help soon had her in her lap.

“Now, you——” she gasped, looking anxiously into his white face.

“No—row! row with all your might,” Gerald shouted to the men, “never mind me, but the child must have help.”

They needed no second bidding, and two minutes later they were at the landing, where willing hands were extended to take Allison’s lifeless burden from her.

“Stop!” cried Gerald, as they were about to bear her away to the house.

He seized the child, laid her upon the greensward, fell upon his knees, and began to work upon her as he had once seen a physician try to resuscitate a man who had nearly drowned.

“Go for a doctor, somebody, and then bring blankets,” he continued, without suspending his efforts.

For fifteen minutes or more he worked for dear life, assisted by others; then a physician appearing upon the scene, he was only too glad to relinquish his patient to him, for suspense and excitement, together with the strength he had expended in the water, had nearly exhausted him, and he willingly obeyed Mr. Brewster, who ordered him to “come to his rooms, have a bath, and get into dry clothing.”

The child soon recovered under the physician’s treatment, and appeared as bright and well as ever.

Gerald, who was about the size of Mr. Manning, was provided with necessary apparel from that gentleman’s wardrobe, and ere long reappeared among the company, looking a trifle pale, perhaps, but very handsome and attractive after his act of heroism.

Allison also came down in a fresh toilet in season to receive the adieus of her friends, who declared they had had a delightful time in spite of their recent fright.

No one would acquiesce in Gerald’s going back to the city that night. Mr. Brewster, with an unusual thrill of feeling in his voice, told him to “stay and make himself at home.”

An hour later the gentleman left his niece, Mrs. Manning, with Allison and Gerald, sitting upon the broad balcony overlooking the lake, where a glorious full moon shed its silver light all around them, and went to the library.

Fifteen minutes afterward Gladys called “mama” from above, and Mrs. Manning went up to see what was wanted, when, finding the child restless and nervous, she lay down beside her, where they both soon fell asleep.

Allison and Gerald, thus left alone, had a long, cozy chat together, until the great clock in the hall struck ten, when the former sprang to her feet.

“That means bedtime for me,” she said, laughing, “and papa is so ridiculously particular about it I suppose I must say good night. What a day this has been!” she added, with a deep sigh; “it is a long, long while since I have had such a lovely time. But for the accident there would have been nothing to mar it—at least after you came.”

Gerald’s pulses leaped at those last words, but he dared not betray how they had moved him, and so he replied with what composure he could:

“But that—the accident—only interrupted things for a little while.”

“Yes, thanks to you,” said Allison, as she laid her hand upon the back of his chair, and bent to look into his upturned face. “Oh, Gerald! what should we have done if you had not been there? I shall never forget how you seemed to know just what to do—never! You dear, brave, splendid hero!”

Actuated by the impulse of the moment, and the gratitude of her tender heart, she leaned forward and lightly touched his brow with her sweet, red lips.

Then, frightened at what she had done, she would have fled, but Gerald, every nerve in his body thrilling with ecstasy from that soft caress, sprang to his feet, seized her hands, and drew her gently toward him, looking eagerly down into her blushing face.

“Allison! Allison!” he whispered, all the mighty love within him breaking every barrier down and asserting its God-given right to speak for itself.

There was no mistaking the emotion that vibrated through every syllable of that tenderly uttered name, and, like a flash, it revealed to the beautiful girl what she was to Gerald Winchester—what he was to her, and would be for all time. She lifted one startled, comprehending look to him.

“Gerald!” she breathed softly; then their lips met in a mute caress.

The next instant the young lover found himself alone.

CHAPTER IV.

“I WOULD STAKE MY FORTUNE.”

When Gerald and Allison met at the breakfast-table the next morning the fond glances of the one and the shy blushes of the other warned Mr. Brewster that Cupid was surely in ambush, and it would behoove him to be keenly on the alert. It was his custom to attend church every Sabbath morning, and Allison always accompanied him; accordingly, this morning, notwithstanding the excitement of the previous day, was no exception to his rule.

He courteously invited Gerald to accompany him, but the young man excused himself, as he wished to get back to the city by the next train.

Mr. Brewster offered to drop him at the station, as it lay on their way to church, and he experienced a sense of intense relief when the young man sprang from the carriage, just in season to board the train.

Not that he was not fond of Gerald for his faithfulness to him and his many noble qualities, while his heroism of the previous day had aroused his deepest gratitude, and increased his admiration for him a hundredfold. Had he been his own son, he would have gloried in him, or had he been the son of a man in his own sphere of life, he would have eagerly welcomed him as a suitor for his daughter’s hand. But pride, that relentless tyrant of the human heart, would never swerve out of the beaten track for a struggling clerk, even though he were of irreproachable morals or noblest aspirations.

One day, shortly after the departure of his family for Newport, Mr. Brewster, on entering his office, laid a tiny package upon Gerald’s desk.

“Something that Mrs. Manning commissioned me to hand to you,” he remarked.

It proved to be a small box, which, upon opening, Gerald found to contain a modest—as to size—but flawless diamond, in the form of a stud.

On an accompanying card were written these words:

“With grateful remembrance and kindest regards.

“CHARLES AND ANNIE MANNING.”

Gerald was deeply touched by the testimonial, and greatly delighted with the beautiful gift.

He did not once see or hear from Allison throughout the summer, although, for years, he had never failed to receive an invitation to spend a day or two at Newport with the family, but the memory of those few last moments on that never-to-be-forgotten night at Lakeview—that lingering, betraying caress, and the trustful, loving look in the sweet, startled eyes uplifted to his, was a source of never-failing joy to him.

“I will yet be worthy to claim her, morally, intellectually, and—financially,” he often said to himself, with that same look of determination with which he had once told John Hubbard that nothing was unattainable to him who is bound to win.

The Brewsters remained at the fashionable watering-place until the middle of September, when Mr. and Mrs. Manning went abroad for an extended tour. Allison returned to Smith College, at Northampton, where she had two years more of study before her, and the banker settled himself in his winter home on Madison Avenue.

Thus another twelve months passed. John Hubbard still continued, apparently, to prosper in his worldly affairs, while he seemed to have utterly forgotten his enmity against Gerald.

But from time to time Gerald observed that his employer seemed preoccupied, and wore an anxious look. He was often taciturn, and occasionally harshly impatient, while, upon two or three occasions, he made strenuous efforts to tide over the meeting of certain obligations, which both surprised and troubled his confidential clerk.

Then there came a day, just after the close of Allison’s school year, that carried dismay to the hearts of all of the banker’s friends. He dropped senseless in his office just before the closing of the bank, and was borne to his home paralyzed and speechless. Eminent physicians were summoned, and every known remedy employed for his relief. His debility was purely physical, however—his mental faculties appearing to be as keen as ever.

Meantime, John Hubbard assumed the control of affairs at the bank, though, of course, under the authority of Mr. Brewster, and now Gerald began to realize that the tentacles of this human octopus were beginning to close around both himself and his employer.

From time to time the expert would call his attention to the fact that there were mistakes in his work. He could never account for these errors—he could have sworn that his work had been correctly done; but upon reviewing it, he was forced to confess that appearances were against him.

“You’ll have to be more careful, Winchester,” Mr. Hubbard sternly remarked to him one day in December, when, for the third time, he pointed out to him some discrepancies; “this kind of thing has been going on too long altogether; I have been looking back over some of Mr. Brewster’s private accounts, and I find numerous errors covering more than a year. If the man were well, I should disclose the fact to him and have you instantly discharged.”

Gerald flushed crimson. He could have taken his oath that he had never made an error in his work—at least, an uncorrected one.

“Mr. Brewster has never complained,” he began, when his companion curtly interrupted him with the trite remark:

“Figures don’t lie, young man.”

“Figures have been made to lie,” was on the tip of Gerald’s tongue as he darted a suspicious look at his companion; but he resolutely closed his lips and made no response.

But a little later, while John Hubbard was at luncheon and he was left alone in the office, he proceeded to examine some of these criticized accounts, and was almost paralyzed upon discovering how his books appeared to compromise him.

There were evidences that some one had been critically examining them, for there were frequent marginal notes, while the balance seemed to show that he had been cleverly and systematically robbing his employer for a long time.

With a very white face and sternly compressed lips, Gerald took a powerful magnifying-glass and brought it to bear along the various columns of figures.

“I thought so!” he hoarsely muttered, at last, “they have been tampered with! Some of my threes and sixes have been changed to eights; my ones, in numberless instances, have been made into twos, fours, and sevens, but so skilfully that no one would believe me if I should assert it—I could never prove that he did it. Great Heaven! and it has been going on for many months. This was what he had in mind when he crushed my rose and warned me to beware of a similar fate.”

Gerald was sick at heart as he realized that he was standing upon the brink of a fearful precipice and was powerless to help himself—how he had become entangled in a skilfully contrived net from which there seemed to be no possible way of escape.

If Mr. Brewster had been well he would have appealed at once to him, stated his suspicions, and tried to point out the changes he had discovered in the figures, but in the man’s present precarious condition he dared not trouble him with the matter, even if he were allowed an interview with him.

A week passed, and then, to his great joy, he received a note from Mr. Brewster asking him to call upon him at a certain hour the following Saturday, as he had a special commission for him.

He presented himself at the Brewster mansion promptly at the hour mentioned in the note, and was at once conducted to his employer’s presence.

He was greatly shocked at the change in the man—not having seen him since his attack—for he had grown very thin, and seemed to have aged many years. Mr. Brewster greeted him very kindly, and seemed heartily glad to see him, but almost immediately broached the business concerning which he had desired to see him.

“Gerald, I have a secret commission with which I wish to entrust you,” he began, a grave look settling over his face. “I know that I can trust you absolutely, and that is why I have chosen you in preference to any one else.”

“Thank you, sir,” Gerald replied, with a glowing face, his sorely wounded heart greatly comforted by this assurance.

“You have been inside the bank vault?”

“Yes, sir, often; you have frequently sent me to the drawer which contains your private documents.”

“Yes—yes, I know, and —— But before I go on I want you to give me your word of honor that no one shall ever learn from you the secret I am about to commit to you,” said the banker.

“Certainly, sir, I will promise that I will never betray any confidence that you repose in me,” Gerald responded.

“That is enough,” he said. “Now, behind that drawer, which contains those private papers, there is a small, secret vault, which I had built there to store certain valuables during my absence from town. No one save the man who made it, and I, know that it is there; no one would suspect it, for, on removing the drawer, there seems to be nothing but the brick wall behind it. On the contrary, there is an iron plate, or panel, painted to resemble bricks. At the bottom of this panel there is a small slot. You will insert in this a tiny key which I shall give you; turn it half-around, and the panel will spring outward. You can then swing it upward, when you will discover behind it two boxes, take them out, being careful to relock the panel, and bring them to me.”

“Yes, sir; I shall be very glad to do as you wish,” Gerald remarked. “But how will I be able to get into the vault and remove the boxes without the knowledge of others?”

“I have keys that will admit you to it, and you must go to the bank when no one else is there,” said the banker, with a slight frown, as if he did not exactly relish this part of the commission. “To-morrow will be Sunday, and you had best go as soon after you have had your breakfast as you can; then come directly to me. Be careful not to excite the suspicion of any one whom you may meet, for one of the boxes contains valuable jewels that belonged to Mrs. Brewster. I want them for Allison; the other holds nothing of special value to any one except myself.”

Mr. Brewster had become very white during this last statement, and Gerald feared he was talking too much for his strength.

“Here are my keys,” he continued, after a moment, and, taking a bunch from a drawer in the table beside him, “this one unlocks the outer door, this the inner; the brass one opens the gate of the iron fence; the heavy one will admit you to the vault; this unlocks my private drawer, and the little, flat one the panel that conceals the secret vault. Quite a lesson to learn, isn’t it?” he added, with a slight smile; “but I think you will have no difficulty in remembering how to use them.”

“No, sir; four of them I know already, so that leaves only those belonging to your drawer and the secret vault to be distinguished, and that is easily done,” Gerald replied, as he examined each key attentively.

“Very well, then, I shall look for you here again some time to-morrow forenoon. I want to get those boxes into my possession as soon as possible,” Mr. Brewster observed, with a faint but impatient sigh.

“I will try to be here some time between ten and eleven o’clock,” Gerald returned, then added, losing some of his color: “And now, Mr. Brewster, if you are not too tired, I have something to tell you about my work.”

“I am not too tired, go ahead,” said the man; whereupon Gerald gave him a brief account of the conversation that had recently passed between himself and John Hubbard, and what he had discovered afterward in connection with his work.

Mr. Brewster listened to him with growing astonishment, never once removing his eyes from the young man’s face during his recital.

“These are very strange statements, Gerald—very grave statements,” he remarked, with some sternness, as he concluded.

“They are, indeed, sir, and they involve my honor, my reputation, and, unless my past dealings with you and my assurance are sufficient guarantee to you of my integrity, the evidence is there to prove that I have been doing very crooked business in your office. The balances are all right, apparently, but the entries, if examined, would seem to be conclusive testimony that I have been systematically robbing you. Mr. Brewster, I firmly believe that those figures have been skilfully changed for the sole purpose of ruining me.”

“By whom?”

“That, of course, I cannot say positively, but I have long known that Mr. Hubbard dislikes me,” was the somewhat reluctant reply.

“Do you mean to imply that John Hubbard would doctor the accounts to injure you?” exclaimed Mr. Brewster, with a start.

“I have no right to assert that he would, for I cannot prove it; but some one has done it, and he is the only one who, to my knowledge, has had access to the books. I can only say I know he hates me, and—I also say, Mr. Brewster”—and the honest fellow here straightened himself with conscious integrity, and lifted an unfaltering look to his employer—“that I have never made a false entry upon one of your books.”

Neither was conscious of the presence of a third person in the room as the banker heartily responded:

“I am sure you have not, Gerald; I would stake my fortune upon your integrity and upon your unswerving faithfulness to my interests. I will look into this matter just as soon as I am able. Ah! Allison, I did not hear you come in. What is it, dear?” he concluded, turning, as he caught the sound of her step behind him.

She came forward, blushing and smiling a welcome to Gerald.

“It is time for your beef broth, papa,” she said, as she placed a small salver containing a cup before him.

Then she turned to our hero with outstretched hand.

“What an age it is since I saw you last, Gerald,” she remarked, and then flushed again as she recalled her last interview with him.

He returned her greeting with what warmth he dared in Mr. Brewster’s presence, but with a hand-clasp that spoke volumes.

CHAPTER V.

THE BANK ON SUNDAY MORNING.

Allison had come into the room where Gerald and her father were conversing so earnestly just in season to catch the words of commendation uttered by the latter.

“I am sure you have not, Gerald,” he had said; “I would stake my fortune upon your integrity and upon your unswerving faithfulness to my interests.”

She had noted, with the keen perception of a loving heart, the troubled look in Gerald’s eyes, the anxious expression upon his brow, and she instantly knew that something had gone amiss with him, in spite of the fact that he seemed in perfect health, and was handsomer and more manly than ever.

But in the excitement of greeting him—when she saw his face light up with joy in her presence, when she felt the warm, lingering clasp of his hand, and detected the old-time thrill in his voice—she forgot all about it, for the time, and thought only of the pleasures of this unexpected meeting.

When Gerald finally left the house it was with a very much lighter heart than when he entered. His employer’s hearty and unqualified assurance of confidence was like balm to his wounded spirit; while his little interview with Allison had set all his pulses vibrating afresh with his deep and abiding love for her.

He had not seen her for many months, and she seemed to have grown a hundredfold more lovely than when he had bidden her adieu on that bright Sunday morning so long ago.

He wondered if she had forgotten the evening previous—their interview upon the veranda, where, with the moonlight streaming upon them in its soft effulgence, they had been conscious only of each other’s presence and the happiness that had thrilled every fiber of their being. Did she remember their parting when the clock struck ten? That blissful moment when their lips met in that involuntary caress? That look into each other’s eyes, that low-breathed “Allison!” “Gerald!” which had expressed so much?

She seemed a trifle more mature; she had acquired a little air of dignity which, on the whole, he decided only added to her charms, although at first it had chilled him slightly—at least, until he found himself looking down into the expressive eyes.

He hoped he should see her again on the morrow, when he returned with the boxes which Mr. Brewster had commissioned him to get from the secret vault.

He smiled and uttered a sigh of content, as he passed his hand over the pocket which held the keys the banker had given to him, and realized that he never would have been entrusted with them if he had not possessed the entire confidence of the man.

He hurried back to his lodging, where, in this happy frame of mind, he settled down to the preparation of some lessons which were to be recited that evening to a certain professor with whom he had been studying for three years.

As we know, Gerald, at the time of his aunt’s death, had been in the second year of the high school, but for a time after that his studies were interrupted, as he found that his daily duties taxed his strength to the utmost.

But as he became accustomed to his work, he began to get hungry for his books again, and for a while attended evening school, although his progress was thus necessarily slow.

Then he made the acquaintance of a professor by the name of Emerson, who, becoming interested in the bright, ambitious lad, offered to help him perfect his education and arranged for Gerald to recite three times a week to him.

He was now in his twenty-first year, and expected by the coming June to complete the studies of the second year of a regular college course.

After partaking of a light supper, he repaired to the house of his friend, Professor Emerson, where he acquitted himself most creditably in his recitations.

The gentleman had become quite fond of his enterprising pupil, and it was a great delight to him to teach one who was so eager for knowledge and so quick to comprehend.

“By the way, Gerald, what do you intend to make of yourself when you get through with your course?” he inquired to-night, as he closed his book after the last recitation, and bent an inquiring look on the handsome face before him.

“I think—since I am so well started in the banking business, I shall stick to it, learn it thoroughly, and, if fortune favors me, perhaps become a banker myself, by and by,” he replied, but with a smile at his egotism in aspiring to a position such as Adam Brewster occupied.

Professor Emerson eyed him curiously for a moment, then remarked:

“You’ll achieve it, if you undertake it, and, rightly conducted, banking is a good business; still, I wish you might go a little higher, intellectually—you would make a fine lawyer, your mental grasp is so keen and accurate.”

“Thank you,” said Gerald, flushing at the compliment, “but it would take me several years to prepare for the bar, after completing my college course, and, since I have my own canoe to paddle, I think I will adhere to what I have begun. I wish, though,” he added gravely, as his mind suddenly reverted to John Hubbard, “I have time to become thoroughly posted in law, and could combine the two, for then I should always be sure of the faithfulness of my legal adviser.”

“Why, Winchester! I did not suppose you possessed so suspicious a nature!” said his friend, smiling, but with a note of surprise in his tones. “If every one was governed by such distrust I fear the lawyers would fare hard.”

“I am not naturally suspicious,” replied Gerald, reddening, “and my remark must seem narrow and intolerant to you; it was prompted by the fact that one lawyer whom I know is anything but an honest and conscientious man.”

“But, ‘one swallow does not make a summer,’ my boy,” retorted his friend, laughing.

“I know it, sir, and I have no business to be suspicious of all men because of one man’s failings. I will try to be more charitable toward lawyers in the future,” said the young man, as he rose to leave.

He felt half-ashamed of having allowed himself to be so swayed by his antipathy against John Hubbard, but all the way back to his lodgings he was haunted by the face of the man and the malignant scowl which had distorted it when he accused him of unfaithfulness and dishonesty in his work.

Even in his sleep during the night he could not divest himself of the consciousness of his vicious individuality—he seemed to be continually pursuing and persecuting him until his visions became so real that they finally drove him from his bed long before his usual hour for rising on Sunday morning.

It was not yet dawn when he arose on Sunday morning, and, upon looking from his window, Gerald saw that it was snowing.

He dressed himself with unusual care, for he hoped to see Allison again, and, loverlike, desired to make as good an appearance in her sight as possible. Then he hurried out for his morning meal, after which he wended his way to the bank, where he arrived about half-past eight.

The steps leading up to the door were covered with snow, and, strangely enough, as he mounted them, leaving a footprint upon every one, an uncomfortable sensation which was akin to guilt, began to creep over him, causing his errand to become suddenly repulsive to him, and making him long to go back to his room and remain there.

But, throwing back his head with an air of conscious rectitude—for was he not there at his employer’s command?—he quickly let himself into the building, removing the key and relocking the door on the inside to make sure that no one would follow him.

Passing through the inner door, he carefully wiped his feet upon the mat, and removed his overshoes lest they should leave tracks upon the floor—that same uncanny feeling which he had experienced outside still pursuing him.

The bank was so still every footfall echoed noisily through it, and sent a nervous shiver creeping down his spine.

“Good gracious!” he exclaimed, with an impatient shrug of his shoulders, “I am no thief stealing in here to rob the place! Why on earth should I feel like one? It is positively absurd!”

Proceeding directly to the vault, he drew the heavy bolts, unlocked and swung open the massive iron-plated door. The place was cold and gloomy, and again Gerald shivered with a nervous chill as he stepped within those solid walls which so securely guarded their hoarded treasure.

Proceeding directly to Mr. Brewster’s private drawer, the number of which he had long known, he unlocked and drew it out, setting it upon the floor.

It contained several packages of papers. But these held no interest for him; he merely gave them a passing glance, then began to look for the slot in the iron panel at the back of the aperture.

It required close searching to find it, but his efforts were finally rewarded, whereupon he inserted the last of his keys, turned it half-around, when the panel sprang outward, as Mr. Brewster had described.

It appeared to be swung upon hinges, and, lifting it up, Gerald could distinguish within the little vault thus disclosed a box of some description.

He drew it from its place of concealment.

It proved to be a beautiful Japanese affair, inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl in an intricate pattern. There was a tiny key in its lock, and for fear that it might drop out and be lost, Gerald removed it and transferred it to a pocket in his vest, without once thinking that he had it in his power to inspect the contents of the casket, if he chose to do so.

Putting it carefully down upon the floor, he looked for the other. He found it shoved away back in the secret vault. It was much larger than the other—a common, though strong, wooden receptacle—and it was also locked, while there was no key with it.

Gerald felt quite sure that the Japanese casket must contain the jewels of which Mr. Brewster had spoken, and which were to be given to Allison. Doubtless they were very valuable, and would be doubly precious to her because they had once belonged to and been worn by her mother.

He would probably see them upon her person some day; but, strange to say, he did not feel half so curious about them as he did regarding the contents of the larger box, for he had been impressed by Mr. Brewster’s manner and expression when he had said that it contained “nothing of special value to any one—except myself.”

However, he felt that it was no business of his what either held; his duty lay simply in conveying them safely to his employer.

Putting the drawer back in its place, he relocked it, when, gathering the boxes from the floor, he turned to leave the vault. At that instant a shadow obscured the light admitted by the open door.

Gerald started forward with a sudden and terrible heart-throb. His face flushed hotly, then paled to the hue of marble as he was confronted by John Hubbard, who was standing upon the threshold, a sardonic grin distorting his sinister countenance.

“Aha! my young burglar,” the man exclaimed, in a tone of fiendish triumph, “is this the way you are in the habit of spending your Sundays?”

The sound of the expert’s voice at once restored Gerald’s composure, although every nerve in his body was tingling with anger at his manner of addressing him.

“I am no burglar, Mr. Hubbard, and you know it,” he coldly returned. “I am not in the habit of coming here—I have never been in the bank on Sunday before this; but——”

“What have you there?” sternly interposed his companion, and indicating by a gesture the boxes in Gerald’s hands.

“Some things belonging to Mr. Brewster.”

“So I judged. How came you here?”

“By his orders,” the young man briefly replied, and then wondered at the almost satanic leer which swept over the features of the man before him.

“Indeed! but how did you pass all these barriers?” with a nod backward over his shoulder.

“Why, by means of these keys, which Mr. Brewster himself gave to me, when he asked me to perform this errand for him,” the young man responded, as he held up the bunch by the ring, and which Mr. Hubbard instantly recognized as belonging to the banker.

“When did you see Mr. Brewster?” he questioned, a look of perplexity flashing over his face.

“Yesterday afternoon—he sent for me to go to him,” Gerald explained.

“H’m!” ejaculated the expert, with a frown. Then, after a moment of thought, he added: “What is in those boxes?”

Again Gerald flushed. Then he threw back his handsome head haughtily.

“Excuse me,” he said freezingly, “but that is a question which Mr. Brewster alone is qualified to answer.”

“Ha! ha!” laughed his companion, but with so weird a note in the sound, which echoed and re-echoed mockingly through the vault, that Gerald’s blood almost seemed to congeal in his veins. “You are very non-committal, my fine fellow,” he continued, with a snarl, “but do you dare to tell me that you don’t know what either of those boxes contains?”

“I must decline to discuss the matter with you, Mr. Hubbard,” was the terse reply.

“Indeed!” sneered his companion. Then he observed, served, authoritatively, as he went a step nearer Gerald. “Very well, we won’t discuss it; but since I am Mr. Brewster’s attorney, I will relieve you of all further care of them. Give them to me.”

“No, sir!” said Gerald resolutely, and retreating from him.

“Give them to me, I tell you!” commanded the man angrily.

“I cannot do that, Mr. Hubbard,” Gerald calmly returned. “Mr. Brewster requested me to come here for them, and then bring them directly to him. I shall deliver them to no other hands.”

Once more that strange laugh echoed through the dismal vault.

“You will have to go a long journey to do that, young man,” said John Hubbard, showing his white teeth in a horrible grin.

“How so?” queried Gerald, in surprise, but with a strange numbness stealing over him, “I—I do not understand you.”

“Adam Brewster is dead!” said John Hubbard.

CHAPTER VI.

GERALD SUFFERS AN INDIGNITY.

There was a dead silence in that gloomy place for the space of a full minute after John Hubbard’s terrible announcement.

“It cannot be possible!” Gerald finally gasped, as he staggered back against the side of the vault, almost paralyzed from horror. As he did so, the topmost box in his hands slipped from his grasp, and fell with a crash to the floor.

The lock was either broken or forced from its socket by the concussion, and the lid flew back, thus disclosing to the curious eyes of John Hubbard various articles of valuable jewelry.

“Aha! diamonds! pearls! rubies and emeralds!” he exclaimed, as he stooped to examine them more closely. “Truly, young man, you were taking time by the forelock to feather your nest before an inventory could be taken of your employer’s effects.”

“What do you mean, sir?” he exclaimed, starting forward, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “Do you dare assert that I knew that Mr. Brewster was not living, and stole here to rob him?”

“I am forced to admit that it looks very much like it,” was the deliberate and cruel response.

A terrible shock went quivering through Gerald at these words, for he realized but too well that the man would do his utmost to injure him by putting the worst possible construction upon the situation.

“You know better!” he cried, hot indignation and resentment flaming up within him; “you know I would not touch a penny that did not belong to me.”

“Ahem! that all sounds very well, my would-be paragon of honor,” sneered the expert, “but you will have to prove it, you know.”

“Prove it! Why, of course, I can prove it,” replied Gerald, a little smile of scorn for his recent fear curling his lips, and a consciousness of rectitude and security supplanting it, “I have Mr. Brewster’s note of yesterday, asking me to come to him, as he had a special commission for me, and then the very fact of my having his keys proves that I am here under orders,” and again he held them up to his companion’s view.

“H’m! so he wrote you to come to him, did he?” queried John Hubbard thoughtfully. “Where is the note? I should like to see it.”

Gerald put his hand into his coat-pocket; then suddenly remembered that he had put on his best suit that morning.

“Ah!” he said, “it is in the pocket of my other coat.”

John Hubbard’s eyes gleamed with a cunning light at this information.

“Well, you will doubtless need all the proof you can bring to get you out of this scrape,” he gruffly observed. “Maybe you can produce such a note, but I doubt it. Did any one see Mr. Brewster give you those keys?”

Gerald’s heart sank at the question, as he remembered that he and his employer had been utterly alone throughout their interview, except for the few minutes that Allison was in the room, and he was sure she had heard nothing that would prove the truth of what he had asserted. At least he knew she was not there when the keys were given to him.

“You have no right to question me like this, or to doubt my word, and I will have no further conversation with you about the matter,” he responded, after a moment of thought.

But he was deathly pale as he stooped to recover the box that had fallen. He found that it was not broken; the lock had only been forced by the fall. He carefully arranged the jewels which had been somewhat displaced, although, fortunately, none had been spilled; then, shutting the box, he relocked it with the key which he took from his vest-pocket.

John Hubbard watched him warily while he was thus engaged. “I will take charge of those things,” he sternly observed, as Gerald was about to replace the key in his pocket.

“Excuse me; but I do not think you will,” the young man coldly returned.

“I am Mr. Brewster’s attorney, and it will be my duty to settle his estate; consequently all his property will pass through my hands. Give me those boxes!” the man concluded authoritatively.

“No, sir. Mr. Brewster authorized me to take them to his house; I shall do as he ordered, and since you say he is no longer living, give them to Miss Brewster; he stated that he wanted the jewels for her.”

And he started to leave the vault as he concluded.

“You will do no such thing, you young upstart!” snarled John Hubbard, at the same time making an agile spring backward out of the vault, when he swung to the ponderous door almost before Gerald comprehended his intention.

“Now, you beggarly upstart, I have you just where I want you,” he cried, in a cruel, exultant tone, and putting his lips to the keyhole, “I once gave you an object-lesson regarding your fate if you continued to stand in my way.”

Gerald did not deign to reply to these taunts and presently he knew, by the closing of the outer door of the bank, that he was alone.

His heart was very heavy, for he began to realize that his case was desperate. Fate and his evil-minded foe had conspired to so involve him in a network of compromising circumstances, it seemed likely that he was destined to be proved a graceless scamp and a daring robber.

His employer, the only one who had it in his power to exonerate him from blame and prove his innocence, was dead.

He felt almost sure that John Hubbard intended to bring an officer there to arrest him, with the evidences of his guilt around him.

With this thought there came the temptation to restore those boxes to the secret vault from which he had taken them.

Mr. Brewster had said that no one, save himself and the man who constructed it, knew of its existence. If he should conceal those jewels and the other box, there would be no evidence, beyond John Hubbard’s word, to prove that he had attempted to take them from the bank. His word would be just as good as that of his enemy, upon whom the burden of proving his own accusations would have to rest.

“But I should have to deny all knowledge of them. I should be obliged to lie, and that I will not do, even to save my—myself from prison,” he said to himself, with an air of proud resolution. “No, I will tell the truth and take my chance; I have Mr. Brewster’s note telling me to come to him; I have also his keys, and the two taken together ought to be strong points in my defense.”

Nevertheless, these arguments were small consolation in view of his unfortunate situation.

Then his thoughts reverted to Mr. Brewster, and hot tears rushed into his eyes as he realized that the man was lying still in death, and they would never meet in this life again. He was still weak from the shock he had experienced upon learning the fact so suddenly, and he wondered what could have caused the unlooked-for attack.

He had appeared to be very comfortable, and hopeful of soon getting out again, when he had seen him the previous day, and it seemed awful to him that he should have been so ruthlessly cut down, just in the prime of life, and in the height of prosperity.

He was wild with impatience to learn the particulars, and chafed restively against his confinement in that tomb-like place.

“Poor Allison! It will be a terrible blow to her,” he mused; “she will be all alone in the world now; but she is fortunate to be left an heiress, and thus shielded from the hardships of life.”

Alas! he little thought that the fortune which would fall to the girl was destined to bring upon her dangers and trials from which he would have shrunk appalled could he have foreseen them.

He sprang to his feet and began to pace the vault restlessly, for a feeling of faintness and sickness came over him; he also experienced a difficulty in breathing, as the air in the place began to be vitiated.

Suppose John Hubbard should not return in season to release him before suffocation overtook him, he thought, a nervous chill creeping over him; but he discarded it with a bitter smile.

He well knew that the man would not dare to let him die there—that he was planning for him a worse fate than death, out of a cruel spirit of revenge, because he had dared to love the girl whom he, for some strange reason, coveted. He believed that he meant to so crush and humiliate him that he would never want to seek Allison Brewster again, or meet the gaze of her pure, clear eyes.

“He shall not do it! by Heaven! he shall not succeed in his atrocious designs!” he cried out, in a sudden anguish, as those torturing thoughts flitted through his brain. “I am an honest man, and I swear I will yet prove it to the world, in spite of the worst that he can do.”

A little later he heard the outer door of the bank open and close again, then the sound of steps and voices drawing near him, until presently, the bolt which fastened the door of the vault was shot back, and the next moment John Hubbard, accompanied by a policeman, stood in his presence.

“Here, Mr. Officer, is your prisoner, and that,” pointing to the two boxes upon the floor, “is the booty with which he was about to make off when I caught him,” the man explained, as he shot a look of malignant triumph at his victim.

“Humph!” ejaculated the officer, as he darted a comprehensive glance around the place, and at the same time taking the measure of Gerald.

“It is very fortunate that I happen here just as I did,” Mr. Hubbard went on. “I seldom come to the bank on Sunday, but there were some papers here which I was obliged to have to-day, and thus I came upon him in the midst of his depredations.”

“H’m! you look rather young and green to be a bank-robber,” the policeman remarked, not unkindly, as he searched the pale, handsome face of his prisoner; “you don’t seem like the sort, either, that would be up to such business.”

“I am no bank-robber,” said Gerald, with quiet dignity, and meeting the man’s searching look unflinchingly, “I am here under orders.”

“Whose orders?”

“My employer’s, Mr. Brewster’s,” and Gerald proceeded to give him a brief account of the facts of the case, though he said nothing about the secret vault.

“That sounds all straight and right,” said the policeman, as he gravely turned to Mr. Hubbard.

“Yes; he tells a very plausible story,” was the sneering response, “but it is perfectly absurd, when you come to think of it, that Mr. Brewster should intrust such a commission to a mere boy, when I have been his attorney, and have conducted his affairs for years; and on Sunday, with so much secrecy, too! That was not Adam Brewster’s way of doing business; it is far more likely that he would have sent for what he wanted, openly and aboveboard, and on some day during regular banking hours. No, sir; he can’t pull the wool over my eyes; and as I feel bound to protect the interests of my late client, I shall expect you to do your duty, and take the fellow in charge,” he concluded authoritatively.

“Well, I suppose I must,” the man responded, with evident reluctance, adding, as he drew from a capacious pocket a pair of steel bracelets, “hold out your hands, my young man.”

Gerald shrank back a step.

“Oh! not that!” he said, with pale lips; “I beg you will not handcuff me. I will go with you peaceably.”

“Well, maybe you would. I’m inclined to believe you; but it’s my rule to make sure of my birds, and I don’t make any exceptions,” said the man, as he dexterously slipped the shackles upon the wrists of his prisoner; but with an air that betrayed he did not very much relish the business in hand.

“The keys, Mr. Officer; I must have the keys,” John Hubbard interposed, as they were about to leave the vault.

“Where are they, youngster?” demanded the man. “Hand them over.”

“They are in the left pocket of my coat,” said Gerald, with difficulty repressing a groan over his ignominious and utter failure to execute his employer’s commission.

He was impressed that the larger box contained some secret which Mr. Brewster would not, on any account, have made known to the world, and he could not bear the thought that John Hubbard would now learn it, and perhaps put it to an ignoble use.

The expert plunged his hand into the pocket designated, and drew forth the keys, after which he stooped to secure the boxes, and left the vault, followed by the officer and his prisoner.

“Now you may go and cage your bird,” he remarked to the former. “I will let you out of the bank, but I have some business here, and shall remain a while longer.”

He unlocked the outer door, and the two men passed out into the storm. John Hubbard stood looking after them for a few moments, a fiendish expression on his thin face.

“Gad! what luck!” he muttered. “If ever I made a shrewd move, it was in coming here this morning to get those papers.”

He returned to the vault, which he securely locked, also the gate to the iron inclosure.

Then, taking the two boxes, he went inside the banker’s private office, and deposited them upon the table there.

“Humph!” he observed, as he fastened a keen, curious glance upon the larger, “there is no key to that, but I’m going to know what it contains, all the same.”

Whereupon he sat down, drew it to him, and deliberately began to pick the lock.

CHAPTER VII.

MR. BREWSTER’S WILL.

After Gerald left Mr. Brewster, on Saturday afternoon, the banker—Allison also having retired—sat for a long time in deep thought, an anxious look on his thin face, a stern expression in his shrewd, gray eyes.

“It certainly looks bad,” he muttered; “somebody has evidently been meddling with my private accounts; but Gerald is not the rogue—he is true to the core. I never knew any one possessing a finer sense of honor. If I thought that Hubbard was up to any rascality—and I am sometimes inclined to think he is too sharp—I’d cut him loose without ceremony; and yet”—with a scowl of annoyance—“that might not be so easily done, for some of our transactions have become strangely mixed. Somehow, I have never had quite so much confidence in him since that day when he proposed for Allison. I—I really would like to break away from him before she gets through school next summer, for, of course, she will never want to marry him, and I am very sure I do not want him for a son-in-law.”

Again he dropped into profound thought, which was finally interrupted by the entrance of his attendant, with the light repast which constituted his supper.

A little later, Allison came again, to read the evening paper to him, after which they chatted socially for a while, when the banker said he felt weary, and would retire.

His attendant was assisting him to prepare for bed when he suddenly put his hand to his head and made an exclamation as if he were in pain.

“It is nothing,” he said, as the nurse glanced at him in surprise, “merely a neuralgic twinge in my head; but—what is this?” he added thickly, and beginning to rub his face, which was twitching and had a strangely drawn look.

The next moment he fell forward upon the bed, unconscious.

A physician was summoned, and everything done that medical skill could suggest; but the man never rallied; he remained in a stupor throughout the night, until an early hour of the morning, when he sank away like the sudden going out of a candle.

Knowing that John Hubbard was her father’s attorney, and otherwise connected with him in business, and having no relatives upon whom to call in this emergency, Allison had sent for the lawyer, when it was found that the banker could not live, and he had remained at the house until the end.

He assumed the care of everything, made all arrangements for the burial, subject, of course, to Allison’s wishes and preferences, and when these duties were over, he repaired immediately to the bank, as there were certain papers which he wished to secure, and certain accounts to be balanced, before Mr. Brewster’s death should become known to the employees of the institution.

It required some time for Hubbard to pick the lock of the box, for it was strangely constructed, and, not having been disturbed for many years, the lock was considerably rusted.

But patience and perseverance at length accomplished his purpose, when, throwing open the cover, an exclamation of disappointment and disgust escaped him when he found within only a few neatly folded articles of infant’s clothing.

Upon the garment uppermost there was a small pin, in the form of a key, with a tiny diamond in the thumb-piece, which attracted his interest for a moment.

“Pshaw!” the man impatiently ejaculated. “I might have saved my time and trouble; this trumpery doesn’t amount to anything. The things are doubtless some of Allison’s baby-clothes, which her mother wished to preserve for her. Bah!”

He was upon the point of closing the box, when a second thought prompted him to turn it upside down, whereupon, as the clothing slipped out, two sealed envelopes rattled out upon the table.

“Aha! this begins to be more interesting!” exclaimed the man eagerly, a curious look leaping into his shrewd eyes. He tore open the envelopes, one of which contained quite a bulky enclosure; the other but a single half-sheet of paper, with some careless writing on one side.

This latter John Hubbard read first, and a look of astonishment overspread his face while doing so.

“Well! well! here is romance worth reading!” he muttered, in a wondering tone, as he dropped the paper and took up the closely written sheets of the other missive and began to puruse them.

He seemed turned to stone as he read.

“My Dear Husband,” the communication began, “I have a confession to make to you, and I am wondering if you will ever forgive me when you learn the nature of it. I am dying, or I fear that I should not have the courage to make it even now; but I dare not go out of the world weighed down with this, the only secret I have ever kept from you, and with a living lie upon my conscience. It is an awful secret, Adam, and you will be shocked to your soul when you read it. Allison is not our own child, my husband; I do not even know whose child she is. There the truth is out at last, and, oh! my dear, my dear, I am trying to imagine how you will receive this dreadful revelation. Why did I deceive you so? How does it happen that our darling is not our very own? you will ask. Ah! it is a long, sad story, but you shall have every detail, and then judge me as you will. You remember that when you sailed for Europe, before our own little one came, I went to F—— to remain with my sister Nannie. Adam, that little one died at its birth; but no one knew it save Nannie, Sarah—her servant—and I. I had no physician, for baby came unexpectedly in the midst of a terrible tempest, and Nannie took care of me; but, oh! I was heartbroken when my darling died, and I grieved so knowing how terribly you also would be disappointed, my sister feared that you would lose me also. And now I will tell you how strangely Allison was sent to take the place of the child we lost. How dreadful it seems that hearts who so yearn for these darlings are ruthlessly deprived of them, while other children are remorselessly deserted, and left to the doubtful charity of a cold world.”

Then there followed a full account of the incidents which have already been related in the prologue to our story, and which it would be wearisome to the reader to have repeated here.

Nothing was withheld, neither was the deception defended; a concise, simple statement of facts was made; but when the story was all told the fond, yet timid, wife and mother poured out a wealth of love for the child of her adoption, and pleaded with a pathetic earnestness that would melt the coldest heart that her sin might not be visited upon the innocent little daughter whom they both so dearly loved, but that her husband, even though he had been secretly wronged and deceived, would still continue to tenderly cherish her and never allow her to know the story of her desertion, or that she was not their own flesh and blood.

“Humph! My wealthy and aristocratic banker, you were smart in certain directions, but you were inclined to neglect the burning of your bridges behind you,” sneered Hubbard, as he finished reading. “Doubtless that was what he meant to do, and that was why he sent Winchester here to get the things to-day? Gad! but it is a queer complication of circumstances—his dying so suddenly just at this time, these papers falling into my hands, and the sweeping of that young upstart from my path—that has conspired to throw the power for which I have been scheming for so many years directly into my hands in a way I least expected.”

He sat for a long time absorbed in thought, his sinister face changing in expression with the working of his mind, and plainly betraying that he was plotting some deep and villainous scheme.

“If she can be persuaded to marry me as soon as she finishes her education everything can be quietly settled just to my liking; and then, John Hubbard, you may play the high-toned gentleman to your heart’s content for the remainder of your life. But if she should be obstinate and refuse me——”

An ugly scowl contracted his brow as he abruptly paused at this point, while his eyes fastened themselves with an ugly glitter in their depths upon the box whose sacred secrets he had just fathomed. Then once more he fell into a fit of musing, which lasted a long while.

Finally he arose, and, making his way again to the vault—which he reopened with Mr. Brewster’s key—he sought the banker’s private drawer, removing it, and taking it, with its contents, back to the office, when he reseated himself and began to examine the papers within it.

He finally found what he was in search of—a legal document, which he drew from its envelope, unfolded, and began to study attentively. After he had read it through he went back to the first page, which he deliberately detached from the others; then, procuring another sheet of paper exactly like it, he proceeded to copy it, with a fountain-pen, which he always carried with him in a hand which showed that the entire document had been written by him, but making certain changes in the phraseology to suit himself.

“There!” he observed, with an air of satisfaction as he finished his work; “that will fix things just as I want them—for the present.”

He then refolded the paper, inclosed it in a fresh envelope, sealed it with red wax, and wrote across the top of it in a bold, clear hand, “Last will and testament of Adam Brewster.”

This he replaced in the drawer, which he carried back to its place in the vault; then, making everything secure inside the bank, he left the building, taking with him the two boxes which he had previously wrapped in strong brown paper.

Three days later all that was mortal of Adam Brewster was laid away in the family vault in Greenwood Cemetery.

In the foremost carriage of the many which followed him to his last resting-place sat Allison, the once petted and idolized daughter, but now a lonely orphan, clad in deepest mourning, her fair face pale and tear-stained from heart-breaking grief and much weeping.

The faithful housekeeper, Mrs. Polard, who had been in the family for years, occupied the seat beside her, and John Hubbard the one opposite. He seemed in deep thought, and he scarcely took his eyes from the bereaved girl during the melancholy drive.

Immediately upon the return from this last tribute of respect to the late banker a few persons gathered in the elegant library, which would henceforth know his presence no more, to listen to the reading of his last will and testament.

Mr. Hubbard broke the seals in the presence of the gentleman’s pastor, two of the older officers of the bank, Allison and Mrs. Pollard.

The document was rather brief, considering the magnitude of the testator’s fortune, and to the point, and was dated some eight years previous.

It bequeathed all that he might die possessed of to his only and beloved child, Allison Porter Brewster, excepting certain bequests. “And I hereby appoint John L. Hubbard, my trusted attorney, to be her sole guardian—if he be living at the time of my demise—until she shall attain her twenty-fifth year, when she shall come into the unrestricted possession of her whole fortune,” read the will.

Allison listened attentively to the reading of the will, although she had flushed hotly upon learning that she was to be under the guardianship of John Hubbard during the next six or seven years.

She had never liked her father’s attorney, although he had always treated her with the utmost kindness and respect. But she knew that her father had long trusted him in business, and therefore, she tried to think that he must have considered him the most competent and trustworthy person to manage her property, or he would not have given him so much power.

Still, she would have preferred almost any one else; she felt that he might, at least, have consulted her, since she had grown old enough to think for herself, and not condemned her to such a long and wearisome bondage to one who was so uncongenial to her in every way.

Of course, she did not once dream that her father’s will had been tampered with since his death.

After the reading of the will, those who had been invited to be present during that formality took their leave, and Allison found herself alone with the man to whom, for the next six or seven years, she was to look for the management of her affairs.

He now remained with her for a half-hour or more, consulting her wishes with a gentle deference which disarmed her, and made her feel that perhaps, after all, he might be a very agreeable sort of person to have for a guardian.

He came again the next day and every day throughout the week—always upon some business which he contrived to make so interesting that Allison really began to look forward to his coming and to greet him with a growing cordiality and frankness that made the man’s heart burn with eager hope and the belief that he was destined to win the great stakes which for years he had been playing.

One morning, after an unusually entertaining call he arose to leave, remarking, in a laughing way:

“Well, Allison, I begin to think you would make quite a business woman with the right coaching; you have been quite an apt pupil during the last few days.”

She glanced up at him with a smile, and then a sob burst involuntarily from her.

The man started, and bent a tender look upon her.

“Dear child, what is it?” he questioned, earnestly.

“Oh, I am so alone!” she moaned, tears raining over her face. “This great house seems so desolate, so empty! I feel as if I could not live here another day,” she concluded, glancing around the spacious, elegant room, and shivering nervously.

“I know you must be lonely, dear,” he said, trembling himself, as he leaned eagerly toward her, “and it pains me deeply to see you so sorrowful. I would that I might shield you from every pang, from every ill in life. Allison, may I?”

His voice was husky from mingled emotion and tenderness; he was very pale from the intensity of passion that throbbed in every pulse of his being; and Allison, looking up at him with a sudden shock, read in his burning eyes the story that he was yearning to tell her.

A hot flush instantly suffused her own face; then she shrank from him with a gesture of unmistakable repugnance.

But he had no intention of losing the vantage-ground that he had gained, and, bending still nearer her, he captured one of her hands.

“I perceive that you have fathomed my secret, my darling,” he said, in a tremulous tone. “Yes, I love you, sweet. I have loved you ever since you were a little girl, and have lived for years with the one hope in view of some day winning your love in return. Now let me become your guardian in more senses than one, Allison. Become my wife and give me the right to smooth every rough place in life for you; let me shield you from every rude wind and storm——”

“Oh, don’t! don’t!” suddenly interposed the girl, and snatching her hand from his grasp. “Oh, why do you say such things to me? You have no right to take advantage of my sorrow and loneliness. I will not listen to you!”

“Hush, my child!” said her companion gently, but growing very white about the mouth. “My declaration may seem somewhat premature, but I have waited many years for the time to come when I might tell you that all the hopes of my life were centered in you. I can wait still longer, Allison—I can even be as patient as Jacob of old if you will give me a crumb of comfort—if you will tell me that I may hope to win you at last——”

“No! no! I never could marry you,” Alison cried wildly, and with such significant emphasis there was no mistaking her attitude toward her would-be lover, and which stung him like a lash.

CHAPTER VIII.

EVIDENCE BY MR. PLUM.

“Very well; we will drop the subject for the present,” John Hubbard remarked, with compressed lips, and making a visible effort for self-control, “but I want you to think over what I have said, and be prepared to give me a different answer later on.”

Allison started, and something in his tone stirred her anger and instantly restored all her self-possession.

“No,” she said decidedly, as she lifted her beautiful eyes, and steadily met his, “I do not need to think it over, and I could not give you any different answer later on. I know now that I do not love you well enough to marry you, and never shall; so, Mr. Hubbard, please never speak of this again to me.”

Her manner was so resolute, her tone so calmly authoritative he knew that she meant every word she uttered, and a terrible though silent rage took possession of him.

But he had far too much at stake to betray it, and thus incur her enmity. He meant to move heaven and earth to win her and her magnificent fortune. He meant to have both, if he could; but if she proved obstinate, and would not marry him, he had other plans—he would ruthlessly crush her, and so eventually win her money. Still, a young and pretty wife was worth temporizing for; and so, with a forced smile, he said:

“My child, I love you far too well to bring even a cloud to your dear face, so we will drop the subject for the present, and some time, perhaps, you will realize the value of a true and faithful heart.”

When he went away, Alison, with a troubled face, watched him from a window, as he passed down the street.

“Ugh!” she cried, shrugging her shoulders impatiently. “I could never marry him—never! Why, he is years and years older than I! Then he has such horrid eyes, and, when he smiles, his teeth look just like those of an ugly dog through that mustache of his, and make my flesh creep. I don’t believe that any man so repulsive can be really good, and I wonder how papa could have trusted him as he seemed to. I suppose, though, he must be a good business man; but marry him! I’d rather go into a convent and live out the rest of my life as a nun,” she concluded, with a shiver of disgust.

Then, suddenly, her thoughts reverted to Gerald, and a little color came back to her pale cheeks.

“I wonder where he can be,” she mused. “I think it is so strange that he has not been here—that he did not come to papa’s funeral, and has not even sent me a note to tell me that he is sorry for my trouble—he might, at least, have done as much as that.”

Her lips quivered, and hot tears rushed to her eyes, in view of this seeming neglect.

Many times during those days of loneliness and sorrow she had thought that if she could see Gerald, if only for a few minutes, his presence would be an inexpressible comfort to her; but she had told herself that it was his duty to either come to her, or send her a note of condolence, and she had been too proud to write and ask him to come.

But now, after her disagreeable interview with her guardian, the longing for him became so intense that, after struggling for a few moments with her emotions, she bowed her face upon her hands, and burst into violent weeping.

But poor Gerald was still a prisoner, awaiting his trial, which, for some inexplicable reason, had been deferred, from day to day, until he was now very impatient and miserable.

On Monday, after his arrest, he had sent a note to Professor Emerson, who, after listening to the young man’s story, looked grave and perplexed. The case seemed difficult, and he at once procured a lawyer, Mr. Arnold, for the prisoner. The latter at Gerald’s request, went to his room to procure the note that Mr. Brewster had written to him, but it was nowhere to be found.

The landlady was interviewed to ascertain, if possible, if any one outside the house had been in his room during his absence; but both she and the chambermaid asserted that there had not.

It was, nevertheless, a fact that John Hubbard had himself been there. As it happened, he knew another lodger in the same house, and on Monday evening following Gerald’s arrest, he called upon him, making a plausible errand of some kind. In this way he learned that Gerald’s room was located upon the same floor, and upon taking his leave, he shyly slipped into our hero’s apartment, and in less than two minutes reappeared with Mr. Brewster’s note in his possession, thus depriving his victim of an important piece of evidence.

Gerald, in laying his case before his lawyer, did not mention Allison, or the fact that she had been present in the room during any portion of his interview with her father.

He really believed that she had not entered in season to overhear anything that had been said about the “doctored” accounts, and even if he had known that such was the case, it is doubtful if he could have brought himself to call upon her as a witness for him. The thought of dragging her into a criminal court, to have her name bandied about by newspaper reporters, was very repugnant to him. Besides, she had not shown the slightest interest in him, or sympathy for him in his trouble. He reasoned that she could not fail to know of it, since it had been widely chronicled in the papers, and her apparent indifference cut him to the quick, wounding his pride as well as his love, and thus a certain obstinacy took possession of him, and made him secretly vow that he would not appeal to her, even if he knew that her evidence would save him from serving a sentence in State prison.

The real facts of the case were, that during the first few days after her father’s death, Allison had been so prostrated with grief that it had been comparatively easy for John Hubbard to keep all newspapers from her, which he had taken special pains to do, as he did not care to have her know anything of Gerald’s trouble until it was too late for her to interest herself for him. He believed that he had played his cards so cleverly that his conviction was inevitable, and, once behind prison-bars, he believed the fair girl would never give him another thought.

The case was finally called on the Tuesday following Mr. Brewster’s burial. John Hubbard appeared against Gerald armed and equipped with the falsified books, the casket of jewels, and the other box, which had been carefully relocked, for the wily plotter had no intention of having its secrets disclosed at present—those he was reserving for later schemes in connection with Allison.

The evidence for the prosecution was presented, with all the eloquence and cunning of which the expert was master, and to every listener in the room the fate of Gerald appeared settled before he concluded.

There were very few witnesses for the prisoner. The servant who had admitted him to the Brewster mansion on the Saturday previous to his master’s death, swore to the fact, thus proving that he had been there, and Professor Emerson, on taking the stand, spoke eloquently and in the highest terms of his pupil, and emphatically asserted that he believed him to be above doing a mean or dishonest act. But, of course, all this proved nothing.

Gerald was then allowed to go upon the stand, and tell his own story, and the moment that he turned his frank, handsome face to the audience, when he met those critical, searching glances with his clear, honest eyes, and manly bearing, it was evident that he made a favorable impression upon every person in the room—excepting his sworn enemy. When he finally concluded, Hubbard demanded the production of the note from Mr. Brewster relating to “a special commission.”

“It cannot be found,” Mr. Arnold gravely responded. “Mr. Winchester left it in a pocket of his business-suit on Sunday, when he went to the bank to execute his employer’s commission. He has not been in his room since; but when I was authorized to go to his room to secure this note, it had mysteriously disappeared. Nevertheless, the fact that he went to Mr. Brewster’s residence on the date stated, and was admitted to the man’s presence, proves conclusively that he was sent for.”

“Not at all,” retorted the prosecuting-attorney, “any one might have called at the banker’s residence, requested an audience, and been admitted to his presence without a previous appointment. We are not asking opinions, your honor, we want evidence. You assert,” he added, turning to Gerald, “that Mr. Brewster gave you the keys to the bank and his private drawer in the vault. Will you state where he took them from before handing them to you?”

“From a drawer in the table beside him.”

“Exactly. Where any one could easily have secured them in the event of Mr. Brewster’s back being turned for a moment,” retorted the expert laconically. “Now, with reference to these falsified accounts,” said Hubbard, touching the books before him, his white teeth gleaming viciously for a moment beneath his mustache, “you claim, I believe, that they are none of your work—that some one else has changed your figures. We would like to have your statements proven, young man.”

“I never knowingly made a false entry in my life,” Gerald proudly returned, but flushing hotly beneath the man’s insolent manner; “my own figures were all correct when entered, but my ‘ones’ have been made over into fours, nines, sevens, zeros, and so forth——”

“But the proof, young man—the proof!” interposed his tormentor.

“If any one will add the columns, calling such figures as I should point out, ‘ones,’ the balance would be found correct in every instance,” Gerald replied.

“Possibly, but we want evidence to prove that those ‘ones’ have been changed.”

“You can have it, sir,” said Mr. Arnold, in a brisk, businesslike tone, that made John Hubbard prick up his ears, and, at a signal, another witness now came forward.

He was a small, olive-complexioned man, with straight black hair, small, sharp features, with a pair of keen, black eyes, which were shaded by steel-bowed spectacles.

His manner was abrupt, and there was a decisive air about him which indicated strong personality, while he rejoiced in the sobriquet of Plum—Mr. Thomas Plum.

“Mr. Plum,” courteously observed Mr. Arnold, “will you tell the court what you have discovered with reference to those ‘doctored accounts’?”

“Yes, sir, yes, sir,” responded the brisk little man, taking out some tablets, “I find no less than eighty instances where the figure ‘one’ has been skilfully changed to some other figure, in those accounts, and covering a period of from sixteen, to eighteen months. If the figures were added as ones, which they were originally, the balance would, in every instance, be correct; but, according to the changes made, there seems to be a deficit of several hundreds of dollars.”

John Hubbard suddenly sat erect, an alert spark glittering in his cold, gray eyes.

“So you assert, under oath, Mr. Plum, that those figures have all been changed since the original balances were made up?” he observed, in a metallic tone.

“Yes, sir,” briefly but positively.

“You are willing to swear that the work was all square and right when the clerk left it under the dates there recorded?”

“Exactly, sir.”

“Prove it, if you please.”

“That I am prepared to do,” said the expert cheerfully, but flashing a look at his questioner which sent a sudden chill through him. “In the first place, Mr. Winchester’s figures were all entered with the same ink, and with a fine-pointed steel pen. The figures that have been tampered with show a different ink, and were evidently changed with a gold, and, probably, a fountain-pen.”

“How can you detect between the work of a gold and a steel pen?” queried Hubbard, with a skeptical smile.

An answering smile curved the lips of Mr. Plum.

“With the utmost ease, sir, as you would soon discover were you to study the subject with the aid of a powerful microscope. The ink flows very differently from a gold and from a steel pen. My examination has proved to me that Mr. Winchester was not guilty of any of the changes referred to—his figures all being very decided, especially in their angles, while the work of the real culprit, although very cleverly done, shows a certain individuality of roundness about the angles that appears nowhere in Mr. Winchester’s figures. Your honor will observe by the aid of this powerful glass the peculiarities of which I have spoken,” Mr. Plum concluded, as he passed a small case up to the judge, who, after making a careful examination of certain figures, pointed out to him, gravely observed:

“I do so observe; it is evident that the changes were not made by the prisoner.”

Gerald’s face lighted with pleasure at this remark, but his joy was short-lived, for the matter of the doctored accounts was dropped then and the charge of theft taken up.

There followed a long, sharp contest, during which his counsel fought nobly every inch of ground for him; but the burden of proof was all against him, and when the case was finally summed up the outlook was certainly very discouraging.

The judge had been strongly attracted toward Gerald by his frank, honest face, his manly bearing, and his straightforward story; but he was reluctantly compelled to admit that the evidence was decidedly against the prisoner, and he rose to address the jury and summarize the testimony, but before he could utter a word the door of the court-room was thrown open, and a slender, black-robed figure darted inside, and walked, with a quick, firm tread directly toward him.

The intruder was Allison Brewster.

CHAPTER IX.

AN IMPORTANT WITNESS.

The fair girl looked wan, thin, and sad, her recent bereavement having worn heavily upon her. But there was a spot of scarlet upon each cheek, called there by the excitement of the moment, while there was also a gleam of mingled indignation and determination in her beautiful blue eyes, which bespoke some high purpose in view.

Gerald half-started from his seat as he saw her enter the court-room, then a swift, hot flush mounted to his forehead, and he sank back with averted face and painfully compressed lips. As Allison went swiftly across the room her eyes met those of John Hubbard, who sprang to his feet, repressing an oath, and hurried forward to meet her, while the judge paused in surprise at the strange interruption.

“Are you Gerald’s counsel?” Allison questioned excitedly, as her guardian came to her side.

“No,” he said briefly, then added, in a tone of displeasure, “but why are you here? This is no place for you.”

“Who is his lawyer, then?” she demanded, without heeding his objection to her presence.

“No one whom you know; but the case is almost concluded—the judge is about to address the jury. Come, let me take you out.”

“Will Gerald be acquitted?” queried Allison, anxiously.

“I—I cannot say,” the man faltered, his glance wavering before her. “But, come now.”

“No, not until I know how this case is going,” said Allison sharply. “Oh, why did you not tell me about it? I never knew a word of it until an hour ago, when I went to the bank to get something that belonged to papa, which I wanted very much, and Mr. Whipple told me what was going on here.”

The truth was that Allison so yearned to see Gerald that she had made an errand to the bank for that very purpose, when, upon inquiring for him, she had learned the truth, and then, nearly wild with grief, hastened to the courthouse with the hope of being able to help him in some way.

“Order!” some one now called out, for the judge was still waiting for the prosecuting-attorney to return to his seat.

“Who brought this charge against Gerald?” Allison questioned eagerly, but lowering her voice.

“I did,” returned her companion, now white with anger, as he realized that she would not yield to him, and had some definite purpose in view.

“You? Why did you do it?” Allison demanded, with blazing eyes.

“Because I caught him in the act of stealing from the vault of the bank.”

“Never! Gerald could not be guilty of theft,” whispered the girl hoarsely.

“Unfortunately, his guilt has been proven. Now will you come?” And the man laid an authoritative hand upon her arm.

She drew herself haughtily away from him, and, turning, bent her gaze upon Gerald, who was responding to some question just put to him by his counsel.

“Order!” again called the voice; but Allison, all unmindful of the fact that she was becoming conspicuous, glided straight to the side of Albert Arnold.

“Are you Mr. Winchester’s lawyer?” she inquired, at the same time bestowing a tremulous smile upon Gerald.

“Yes,” he replied, smiling encouragement upon her, for he began to see a gleam of hope for his client, as Gerald had just told him who she was.

“Then I have something to tell you,” she said, eagerly; “I would have come before, but I did not know anything about this—this trouble until within an hour. Am I too late to help Gerald?”

“I hope not, my dear young lady, although, to use a slang expression, it is a pretty close shave. Your honor,” turning to the judge, with fresh energy, “this young lady is Miss Brewster, and she informs me that she has some evidence to give in favor of my client.”

“Do you know the nature of it?” inquired his honor.

“I do not; had I known that she was qualified to testify, I should have called her as a witness long before this.”

“She may take the stand,” said the judge, resuming his seat with a feeling of secret satisfaction.

“I object, your honor,” John Hubbard here interposed. “Miss Brewster is my ward—she can know nothing of the affair, and this is no place for her. The case is almost concluded—the evidence has been submitted, and——”

“Mr. Hubbard, the young lady has voluntarily come here to give evidence for the prisoner, and her testimony will be received,” interposed the judge, with considerable sternness, adding, peremptorily: “Officer, swear the witness.”

After Allison was sworn, he courteously remarked:

“Now, Miss Brewster, you may proceed.”

“I am told,” the fair witness began, but now very pale, “that Mr. Winchester is being tried for the crime of robbery. I know that he is guiltless, for I have heard my father say, many times, that he was the most trustworthy young man he ever met. I have heard him say that he was ‘almost morbidly honest.’ I have learned today that this supposed robbery was committed on Sunday, the—the morning after my father died.” Allison’s voice wavered slightly here. “But I am sure there was no theft—no intent to steal; I believe that he was sent to the bank to get the articles found in his possession. I know he came to see papa on Saturday—the day before—for I went into the room while he was there. I am sure, too, that he must have come by appointment, for my father denied himself to all visitors, and seldom saw any one outside the family except on necessary business. If Mr. Winchester says that he gave him the keys to the bank to enable him to perform this errand, I know he must have done so, for he is incapable of falsehood.”

The court-room might have been empty, it was so still. There was not a sound save that sweet, young voice, which was like music to at least one pair of eager ears, as it bravely rehearsed the sterling qualities of her persecuted lover.

The audience listened spellbound—even the judge betrayed, by his eager attitude, how intensely interested he was, while John Hubbard was as white as the handkerchief with which, from time to time, he wiped the moisture from his forehead.

“Neither my father nor Mr. Winchester was aware of my presence in the room until a minute or two after I entered,” Allison resumed, after a momentary pause, “and as I stepped inside the portiéres I heard Gerald say, ‘I have never made a false entry in one of your books.’ ‘I am sure you have not, Gerald,’ papa replied. ‘I would stake my fortune upon your integrity, and your faithfulness to my interests. I will look into this matter as soon as I am able.’ Then I made it known that I was in the room, and, a few minutes later, Mr. Winchester went away.”

Allison heaved a sigh of relief as she concluded, although she would have been willing to talk on indefinitely if she could have given conclusive proof of Gerald’s innocence. But the little that she had told tallied so exactly with his own account of his conversation with Mr. Brewster that it proved a great deal for him.

“Do you think it would have been possible for Mr. Winchester to get possession of your father’s keys without his knowledge?” Gerald’s counsel inquired, a ring of triumph in his tones.

“Certainly not,” Allison replied confidently; “papa always kept them in a small drawer of a table in his room. He was sitting close beside it when I entered the room, and Mr. Winchester was on the opposite side of the table, and there is no drawer on that side.”

There was a little burst of applause at this latter statement, which plainly betrayed the sympathy of those who had listened to the evidence.

Mr. Arnold said he had no further questions to ask, and John Hubbard refusing, with frigid dignity, to catechise his ward, Allison was allowed to leave the stand.

The judge then remarked that, in view of the evidence just given, the aspect of the whole case was reversed, and it was self-evident that the prisoner was innocent of all wrong. The jury announced a verdict of acquittal without leaving their seats.

The moment the court was adjourned, and before her guardian could intercept her, she darted to Gerald’s side and cordially shook hands with him, after which he formally introduced her to his lawyer, who commended her most heartily for the step she had taken, and the timely aid she had given his client.

“Gerald,” she asked, with a look of reproach, “why didn’t you call upon me as a witness?”

He flushed at the question.

“I could not,” he replied, with evident embarrassment; “I could not endure the thought of your coming to such a place, and, besides, I did not know how much or how little you had heard of my conversation with Mr. Brewster.”

“But, at least, you might have let me know that you were in trouble,” Allison returned, with a flash of resentment, while hot tears of wounded feeling rushed to her eyes.

“I supposed, of course, you knew,” he faltered, flushing sensitively, “the newspapers were full of the affair.”

“But I didn’t see the papers.” Then, with a searching look into his face, she added: “If you believed I was aware of your trouble, you must have thought me very—very unfriendly and indifferent—not to send you some word of sympathy, nor come near you.”

Again Gerald flushed.

“I am afraid I haven’t been quite just to you,” he confessed.

“Well?” questioned the girl, somewhat sharply, as a hand was at that moment laid upon her arm, and she turned to find her guardian at her side.

“I have come to take you home,” he briefly remarked.

“Thank you, Mr. Hubbard,” she coldly returned, “but I am not going home at present, and I will not detain you. The carriage is waiting for me, and I have several errands to attend to before dinner.”

“Very well, then, I will escort you to your carriage before I go,” the man responded, white in his lips with inward rage over his defeat.

She gave her head a little independent toss, but she did not quite dare to defy him further, for his tone had been authoritative, and she knew she must go. But first she turned to Gerald and extended her hand.

“Good-by, Gerald,” she said. “I am so glad that all has ended well for you.” Then she added, in a hurried whisper, “Come and tell me about it—come to-morrow afternoon.”

Gerald thanked her, and telegraphed his assent to her request by a nod and a significant pressure of the hand he held.

Then, after bidding Mr. Arnold good-by, she signified to Mr. Hubbard her readiness to go, and so passed out of the court-room with him, but with a frigid manner and haughty bearing which warned him that it might not be to his advantage to presume too much upon his office as guardian of this spirited young lady; that the employment of tact might be more effectual.

Upon reaching the carriage, Allison sprang in, before he could put forth a hand to assist her, and she did not even offer to take him along, and drop him at the bank on her way up-town.

She was inwardly boiling with rage and resentment toward him, because he had been instrumental in bringing Gerald into such trouble and disgrace, and she told herself that she should hate him for it as long as she lived.

He was secretly chafed by her attitude, and yet there was something of amusement and admiration, as well as of anger, in the look with which he regarded her, as he closed the door of the vehicle.

She was very pretty—“deucedly pretty,” as he mentally expressed it—with that spirited air, that defiant flash in her beautiful eyes, and the angry scarlet in her cheeks.

He had never seen her in such a mood before, but it only added to her charms, and he thought he rather liked it—unless it should become too emphatic—unless she should defy all curbing by “taking the bit in those dainty white teeth of hers.”

He bent forward through the open window and intercepted her glance with a smiling, indulgent look.

“I seem to have incurred your displeasure in some way, Miss Allison,” he remarked, in a friendly tone. “Don’t you think you are a trifle unjust to me? I am certainly ignorant of any wilful offense against you.”

“But you said you caused Gerald’s arrest,” Allison began, excitedly.

“And so I did,” he quietly interposed.

“How could you? how could you?” she burst forth angrily; “it was an outrage, for there isn’t a more honest fellow living than Gerald Winchester, and papa——”

“Softly, Allison, softly!” her companion interrupted, a cruel spark leaping into his eyes. “Don’t allow your personal regard for the young man to run away with your judgment. My fidelity to my employer’s interests demands that if I find a burglar in the act of robbing his bank I must guard them to the extent of the law, even though its clutch falls upon a confidential clerk.”

“But you might have given Gerald the benefit of the doubt, when he had the keys—when you knew he had never been guilty of a mean or dishonorable act since he came into papa’s employ,” the fair girl persisted, adding tremulously. “Oh, it would have been too dreadful if I had not found out about it!”

“Yes, doubtless Winchester would have had a three years’ sentence to serve,” John Hubbard returned, indifferently. “But,” he added, assuming a blandness he was far from feeling, “I will not keep you here discussing the matter further, even though I should be glad to convince you of my fidelity to your father, and to assure you that I shall continue to labor as faithfully for your interests.”

Allison gave a little shrug of impatience at this latter remark, thus plainly indicating that it would have pleased her better if she could have had some one more congenial to guard her interests.

The lawyer’s white teeth gleamed at her for an instant from beneath his mustache; then he remarked, in a matter-of-fact tone:

“By the way, you said you had some errands to attend to. Have you plenty of money for your purpose?”

“I have my check-book, thank you, and do not need any money,” Allison coldly returned, drawing her coat more closely about her as a hint that she did not care to be detained longer.

The man looked a trifle surprised at her reply.

“Very well, good-day,” he said, as he lifted his hat and stepped back, whereupon Allison was driven away.

CHAPTER X.

A THRILLING ADVENTURE.

“Humph! So the little minx has her check-book!” mused John Hubbard, as he bent his steps toward the bank after Allison’s departure, an ugly gleam in his cold blue eyes. “That old dotard, her father, must have had considerable confidence in her financial ability to trust her to that extent! However, the game is pretty well in my hands, and I haven’t much anxiety about the result. I’ll win her if I can; I’ll drive her if need be—but I’ll crush her if she defies me!”

Musing thus, the wily schemer proceeded on his way; but, always intolerant of opposition, he was in no amiable frame of mind when he finally reached his office, and settled down to a pile of accumulated work that had been neglected for the outside demands upon his time during the week just passed.

As he sat down to his desk he opened one of the books which he had produced in court to show that Gerald had been guilty of falsifying his accounts, and began to study it intently.

“Humph!” he ejaculated. “I could have sworn that there is not a man living who could detect any change in those figures! That glass must have been wonderfully powerful, and that expert a keen hand at his business. He has made a study of chirography to some purpose! I wonder where they found him? I never heard of him before, although Judge Haight seemed to recognize him. A man needs to have his wits about him nowadays, if he intends to do crooked work.” With which sage reflection Mr. Hubbard closed the book with an impatient bang, and, turning to his papers, was soon absorbed in his work.

An hour later Gerald walked into the bank, when he was most cordially greeted and congratulated by his fellow clerks, with whom he had worked so long. He then went directly to Mr. Brewster’s private office, where he found John Hubbard occupying the late banker’s chair and desk.

The man looked up with a scowl as he entered.

“Well,” he remarked frigidly, “did you think you could come back to your old place?”

“Certainly not, Mr. Hubbard. There is no Mr. Brewster to require a confidential clerk,” Gerald gravely returned. “I have simply come to take away what few things belong to me.”

“Very well; be as expeditious as possible about it,” was the caustic rejoinder, as the man turned his back upon him.

Gerald quietly gathered up his personal belongings and made them into a neat package, put the desk where he had labored so long in perfect order, then left the room and the bank, nodding a friendly adieu to the other clerks as he went, but with a very heavy heart, for without a position and with no influential friends to back him, the outlook was very dark for him.

That evening he called upon Professor Emerson, with whom he had a long talk relative to his prospects.

“There is nothing like a good education to begin life with,” he said. “You are still young, and two years at Harvard are just what you need. Have you anything ahead, Gerald?”

“Yes, sir; I have managed to save five or six hundred dollars since I have been with Mr. Brewster.”

“Have you? Well, that is pretty well for a young man in your position,” said his friend, in a gratified tone; “and now I’m sure I do not see what is to hinder you from going to Harvard.”

“Why to Harvard? Why not to Yale?” questioned Gerald, who would have preferred the latter college, because he would be nearer to New York and Allison.

“Well, Yale is all right; but I have a friend who has a Harvard scholarship to give away, and I am very sure I could get it for you.”

“You are very kind, sir,” the young man replied, flushing with emotion, “and I want a thorough education more than I can tell you; but, really, I do not feel as if I could spare the time to spend two years in college, and then study for a profession afterward. I would like to be working myself up in some business, and keep on with you as I have been doing.”

“I take it that you are ambitious to get rich, my young friend,” said Professor Emerson, with a smile.

“Yes, sir, I am,” Gerald frankly admitted, flushing consciously as he realized why he was so eager to acquire a competence.

“Well, of course, you must judge for yourself; but I should be sorry to have you let so fine an opportunity slip away from you. I advise you to take a little time to think it over before deciding definitely,” said his friend earnestly.

“I will—thank you,” Gerald responded; adding heartily: “But I trust, whether I accept your offer or not, you will feel that I am truly grateful for all your kindness and interest—both past and present.”

It was after ten o’clock when he left the house, and there were indications of a storm. Gerald buttoned his coat close up to his chin, and started briskly on his way.

After passing three or four blocks he turned into a small park, and observed, as he did so, a gentleman some distance in advance of him. He paid no especial attention to the individual until he was on the point of passing out at the opposite gate, when he caught sight of another figure shadowing the first by skulking behind the trunks of trees to keep out of sight.

Gerald felt sure that this latter person had some malicious design against the other, and he quickened his own steps that he might be on hand if assistance was needed; but both had passed out of the gate before he had half-crossed the park.

As he drew near the exit he heard voices in angry conversation, and, peering around a post, he saw the two in conversation, and, peering around a post, he saw the two men standing not a dozen paces away. One was a tall, fine-looking man, handsomely clad. The other was a disreputable-appearing fellow, wearing a rough ulster and a slouch-hat, and Gerald also observed that there was not another person in sight.

“I have told you never to appeal to me again,” Gerald heard the gentleman remark, in sternly resolute tones, “and I shall give you no more money to spend upon drink and gambling.”

“Oh, come, now don’t be hard on a fellow,” pleaded his companion, as he moved a step or two nearer, while Gerald saw him slip his right hand into the pocket of his ulster. “You’re just rolling in wealth, and I am starving. Give me a ‘V.’”

“Not a dime, you rascal! You have played no end of tricks upon me, and I am done with you forever,” was the reply.

“But I’m hungry, I tell you. I haven’t had a decent meal for a week,” persisted the beggar; and now Gerald saw him cautiously withdraw his hand from his pocket with an object in it that made his heart leap into his throat.

“Heavens! It is a sand-bag!” he breathed.

“Well, if you are hungry, go to the nearest station-house, where you will get a night’s lodging, with a supper and breakfast, and to-morrow morning you can work to pay for it,” said the gentleman.

“Work!” snarled the tramp. “Do you think I am going to dig ice from the gutters? Not if I know myself!”

“Very well, then, you may go hungry,” replied his companion, as he turned to proceed on his way.

With an angry oath the tramp raised his arm aloft, and, in a moment more, would have accomplished his deadly work had not Gerald, quick as a flash, sprung from his place of concealment, dashed upon the would-be murderer, and, wrenched the weapon from his grasp.

The wretch was so taken aback that he was utterly unable to defend himself from this rear attack, and an instant later he lay sprawling and stunned upon the pavement, Gerald having dexterously tripped him.

“Now, sir, lend a hand, if you please,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the astonished man whom he had probably saved from a violent death.

“Certainly, certainly,” he replied, quickly recovering himself, and, darting forward, he planted a powerful knee upon the breast of his fallen assailant. “I am sure I had not a suspicion that he would dare do me any violence,” he added. “What was he up to, anyway?”

For answer Gerald held the sand-bag up before him.

“Good heavens! what a wretch!” said the gentleman, in a startled tone. “He is a distant relative—a worthless fellow—and has been a leech upon me for years. But I reckon this business will settle his fate for a while. Now, if you will go to the corner and call a policeman I will manage him while you are gone. Take care, there!” he added sternly, as the prostrate villain began to squirm and struggle, and he enforced his command by a powerful grip upon his throat.

Gerald darted away, and five minutes later came hurrying back with a guardian of the peace, who immediately took the highwayman into custody.

Then he learned that the name of the man whose life he had doubtless saved was Richard Morgan Lyttleton, a noted lawyer, of New York.

The officer demanded his name and address also, telling him that his presence would be required in court on the morrow to testify against the culprit.

Gerald smiled to himself as he thought of appearing so soon again in a criminal-court, and he observed, when he gave his name, that Mr. Lyttleton started slightly, and glanced keenly at him.

Then the policeman marched his prisoner off, when Mr. Lyttleton turned to our hero and cordially extended his hand.

“My young friend, you have rendered me an inestimable service to-night, and I am deeply grateful to you,” he said earnestly; then added: “But, more of this when I see you again, as we shall doubtless meet to-morrow. As it is late and cold, I will not keep you longer. Good night.”

Gerald responded to his adieu, and they separated, each going his own way.

Early the next morning Gerald received a summons to appear at the court-house at eleven o’clock, and, upon arriving at the place, he found his acquaintance of the previous night awaiting him, and who regarded him with curious intentness as he greeted him.

“Can it be possible that you are the Gerald Winchester whose case was before the court yesterday?” he asked.

“Yes, I am sorry to be obliged to confess that I am,” he replied flushing, and a look of pain clouding his fine eyes.

“It was rather a peculiar affair—I was quite interested in it,” said the lawyer.

“Indeed!” Gerald briefly observed.

“Yes, it was really romantic, and you came off with flying colors,” said his companion, smiling. “As I told you last night, I am a lawyer myself, and I confess, up to the moment of the appearance of that young lady upon the scene, I did not see a vestige of hope for you. Young man, you are to be congratulated upon having had so stanch a friend in the charming Miss Brewster. If I am not greatly mistaken, that John Hubbard is a scamp.”

Gerald lifted a glance of surprise to the gentleman’s face.

“What makes you think that?” he questioned.

“Well, I am something of a physiognomist, and, to me, he shows treachery in every glance of his shifty eyes.” Mr. Lyttleton’s expression plainly indicated a decided repugnance to the man under discussion.

“Lyttleton versus Ruggles,” was here shouted by the court-crier, and the conversation of the two gentlemen was interrupted. It did not take very long to settle the case, however, for, in the light of the indisputable evidence brought to bear upon it, the prisoner was found guilty of assault with intent to kill, and sentenced to seven years at Sing Sing. As soon as they were released, Mr. Lyttleton turned to Gerald.

“Come,” he said; “you must come and have lunch with me; I want to talk more with you.”

In a neighboring restaurant they took a secluded table, and over the coffee Mr. Lyttleton astonished Gerald by remarking:

“Mr. Winchester, I happen, just at this time, to be very much in need of a private-secretary. The poor fellow who has served me for five years died last week, and I have, as yet, found no one to fill his place. How would you like the position?”

Gerald lifted a look of bland surprise at the speaker.

“You think I am rather premature in making such a proposal to you upon so short an acquaintance,” Mr. Lyttleton observed, smiling; “but I have told you that I am pretty well versed in character reading, and so, if you are willing to take the place on trial, I am ready to give it to you. I like your looks—your manner; while that girl’s testimony yesterday proved that Adam Brewster had the most implicit confidence in you. That, of itself, is recommendation enough for me. A week from to-morrow, I sail for Europe, to investigate a complicated case which involves a large estate, and which I hope to bring to trial within a couple of months. My partner will manage the business here during my absence, which will probably be six months or more, as I intend to combine pleasure with duty, and see something of the old world before my return. Your salary will be eight hundred and all expenses, for the first year; more after that if we find ourselves mutually congenial. There, you have my proposition—what do you say to it?” the lawyer concluded, as he sat back in his chair and watched the expressive face opposite him.

CHAPTER XI.

“I DID NOT MEAN TO BETRAY MYSELF.”

Gerald’s breath was almost taken away by this unexpected proposal. He had heard of the firm of “Lyttleton & Rand,” both members of which were registered as eminent lawyers in New York. He instantly recognized the fact that it would be a great thing for him to become associated with them, while eight hundred dollars, over and above all living expenses, would be quite a leap beyond fifteen dollars a week, and finding himself. Then, too, the prospect of travel and sightseeing was very alluring.

He was dazzled, almost paralyzed, for a moment, by such unexpected good fortune, coming to him just at this time, when he had seemed to be under such a cloud; but he managed to inquire with a good degree of outward composure:

“What will my duties be?”

“Well, I should say something like what they were with Mr. Brewster,” Mr. Lyttleton responded; “the writing of letters, both confidential and ordinary; the keeping of my private accounts; in fact, whatever of a clerical nature would naturally fall to a lawyer’s secretary, and—perfect loyalty and integrity. I warn you, also, that I shall have plenty of work for you to do.”

“I do not mind work,” said Gerald eagerly. “In fact, I like to be a little crowded. I think it keeps up one’s enthusiasm. The position is very tempting, Mr. Lyttleton, but——”

“But what?” demanded the gentleman, eying him sharply.

“I am wondering if it would be quite honest in me to accept it when you really know nothing of me or my qualifications; and going out of the country, too, it might be quite awkward for you if I should not fill the bill.”

Mr. Lyttleton gave vent to a little laugh.

“Now I begin to understand what Adam Brewster meant when he said you were ‘morbidly honest,’” he replied. “But, in case you do not fill the bill, as you express it, I suppose I could ship you back home again. However, if you are willing to come with me, upon so short an acquaintance, I will assume the responsibility of your ability, and we’ll settle the matter here and now. Is it a bargain?”

“Yes, sir, and thank you very much,” Gerald heartily replied.

“Oh, you needn’t feel under any obligation, for I am going to make you earn your money,” retorted his companion, with a roguish twinkle in his eyes, but in a very satisfied tone. “Will you have a glass of wine with your dessert?”

“Thank you—no; I never take wine—just a cup of coffee, if you please.”

“Coffee for two,” briefly ordered the lawyer; but the look which he bestowed upon his new clerk was one of unqualified approbation.

“Do you disapprove of wines?” he questioned, as the waiter disappeared.

“I disapprove of the abuse of them,” said Gerald, flushing; “and if one does not use them at all one can never be guilty of excess.”

“That is a self-evident fact, surely,” said his companion. “How about smoking?”

“I do not smoke.”

“H’m! you are what might be termed a ‘model young man,’” his employer dryly observed.

“I am nothing of the kind, if, by that, you mean to imply that I assume to have no faults,” Gerald retorted, with a little flash in his eyes, for he began to suspect that he was being quizzed; “but I have always claimed that I would never become a slave to any habit.”

“And you are right, Winchester—I wish there were more young men in the world who possessed just that spirit of independence,” said Mr. Lyttleton, in a friendly tone. “Wines and liquors I shun, but I smoke—my cigar I cannot do without; I wish I could. Now,” he added, as he pushed back his chair, “I have an engagement, and must hurry away; but I would like to have you come to my office to-morrow morning at nine, sharp, when I shall want to talk with you further about your duties.”

“Very well, sir. I will be on time,” Gerald returned, and then the two shook hands cordially, and separated.

It was a little after two when they left the restaurant, and Gerald thought he might as well go directly up-town to call upon Allison, and inform her of his flattering prospects.

But he sighed when he remembered that the ocean would soon roll between them, and it would be many months before he could see her again.

A servant admitted him, and conducted him to the drawing-room, and a few moments later, Allison came running down-stairs, with an eager elasticity in her steps that set her lover’s pulses leaping with secret joy.

As she entered the room, she sprang to meet him with outstretched hands and smiling lips, although the brilliant flush upon her cheeks and the shy drooping of her golden-fringed lids betrayed that she was not quite at ease.

“I am glad to see you, Gerald,” she said, cordially; “it is so long since you were here; and, oh! I can hardly realize all that has happened since that day,” she went on, with starting tears. “It breaks my heart, too, to think how you have been shut up in that dreadful place. Why didn’t you send me word, you bad, bad boy?”

“I did not like to trouble you, Allison—I thought you had enough to bear without adding to your burdens.”

“But it would have helped me to bear mine—it would have given me something else to think of,” said the fair girl; “and then I could have told what I knew, and you would have been set free.”

“No, that could not have been accomplished, for there was no one who would become my bondsman, and the affair had to come to trial; and, besides, Allison, I really did not think that you had overheard anything of importance that would make your testimony of any value,” Gerald explained.

“Well, you might at least have allowed me to prove my friendship for you, and show a little sympathy. I think it was just dreadful, Gerald, and I nearly cried my eyes out yesterday after I came home and had time to realize what you must have suffered. Now do tell me all about it, for I only heard a brief account of the case when I went to the bank. Mr. Phillips said that you were arrested for being found in the vault, with some valuables belonging to papa, and some jewels that were mama’s, besides doing something that I do not understand to some books. He said you were then on trial, and so I hurried away—remembering what I had heard papa say about your honesty—to see if I couldn’t help you.”

“You saved me, Allison—I should have had to serve a term in State’s prison but for you,” said the young man tremulously.

“Well, I want you to begin at the beginning and tell me all,” Allison commanded, as she seated herself upon the sofa beside her guest, and prepared to listen to his story.

Gerald began with the note which he had received from Mr. Brewster, and related all that had occurred in connection with his trouble, up to the time of the trial, while Allison hung almost breathless upon his words.

“And John Hubbard was the one who found you in the vault, and had you arrested, in spite of the fact that you had papa’s keys, and told him that he had sent you there to perform an errand for him?” she exclaimed excitedly, when he concluded.

“Yes.”

“Why, he must have known that you had been sent there?”

“He did know it, Allison; but he asserted, as you know, that I stole the keys from the drawer in the table, while I was here that Saturday afternoon.”

“But I proved that you did not,” cried Allison exultantly, “and he didn’t seem to be very well pleased about it, either.”

“No,” said Gerald gravely; “he had reasons of his own for wanting to ruin my reputation.”

“What reasons?”

“He has long hated me—he has been scheming for nearly two years to get me discharged from the bank, and I am confident that it was he who tampered with the books, to make them show that I had been dishonest, although, of course, I cannot prove this.”

“It was a bright idea of getting that expert,” said Allison.

“Yes, that was Professor Emerson’s idea, and it worked well. The professor returned from Washington only two days before the trial, and, upon learning the charges, immediately said he knew a man who, he thought, would help me. He looked him up, then the two demanded the books for examination, and it did not take Mr. Plum very long to decide that some very crooked work had been done by somebody whose name was not Winchester,” Gerald explained. “I watched Hubbard while he was making his statements,” he added, “and I knew by the look in his eyes that he had been balked in a game which he had felt pretty sure of winning.”

“And yet papa trusted him,” said Allison musingly.

“Surely, Allison, you do not think I doctored those books? You cannot believe that I would be guilty of defrauding your father after all his kindness to me?” he cried, in a wounded tone.

“Oh, no! I did not mean to imply that, Gerald,” she returned earnestly. “I would not have hurt you like that for all the world! No, indeed, Gerald, if all the world said you were guilty, I would never have believed it.”

“Could you have trusted me to such an extent, Allison?” he breathed, bending to look into her eyes, his face lighting with sudden joy.

“You know I could—nothing could ever make me lose faith in you. What I did mean, when I said that papa trusted Mr. Hubbard, was, it seemed strange to me that so shrewd a business man as my father was should have been so deceived in any one.”

“Allison, I do not believe that he was deceived; I imagine he knew he was not to be trusted implicitly,” said Gerald thoughtfully. “I used to fear, sometimes, that John Hubbard had managed to draw Mr. Brewster into some transactions that were beginning to complicate his business, and so made it necessary for him to retain the man.”

“Oh, I hate him with all my heart!” Allison suddenly burst forth, with startling vehemence; “and, Gerald, I am going to tell you something—I must tell somebody: that man asked me the other day to—don’t look at me so, please,” she interposed, averting her scarlet face—“he asked me to marry him.”

“Allison!” exclaimed Gerald, in breathless astonishment, and turning deathly pale; “has he dared—has he presumed upon the position he occupies toward you to do such a thing? Oh, he is a bigger rascal than I thought him. Allison, you will not let him either coax or force you to ruin your life in that way.”

“Why, of course not—I told him I couldn’t marry him; you know I could not, Gerald,” the ingenuous girl replied, and involuntarily moving a little nearer his companion, with a confiding air that thrilled him with joy, and yet what she had told him made him very uneasy.

“I cannot understand why papa should have given him authority over me for so many years,” she said.

“I cannot, either—it seems very strange to me,” Gerald observed thoughtfully. He then told her of Mr. Lyttleton’s proposition, and his contemplated tour abroad; but before he was through Allison dropped her face upon her hands and burst into tears.

“Oh, Gerald, don’t go!—I cannot spare you!” she sobbed.

A shock of joy went quivering through the young man at her words, although his own heart was almost rent in twain in view of the approaching separation. Yet he felt that he had no right to betray the great love he entertained for her. She was young—she was alone in the world, and he felt that it would not be quite honorable to take advantage of either her youth or loneliness to make her commit herself. But, oh! he longed, mightily, to gather her in his arms, tell her all, and ask her to wait until he could win a position worthy of her acceptance, when he would lay himself and all he possessed at her feet.

He was silent so long, thinking of this, and trying to control his yearning, that she finally lifted a wondering glance to him, and thus caught him unawares—reading all that was in his heart through the loving eyes which but too plainly told its story.

The next moment her golden head lay upon his breast, and his trembling arms enfolded her.

“My darling! my darling! I did not mean to betray myself; but you caught me napping,” he breathed, laying his cheek against her shining hair.

Allison lifted her head and flashed him a roguish look through her tears.

“You betrayed yourself a long time ago,” she whispered, a happy smile wreathing her red lips; “have you forgotten that night at Lakeview?”

“No, dear, but I half-hoped that you had, and I have had many a guilty twinge since, recalling it. I really had no right to betray my love for you, nor abuse the confidence and hospitality of your father in any such way; but it was done before I was hardly aware of it. But, Allison, now that the veil has been entirely rent asunder, I must tell you that I began to love you when I first came to your father, and every year has only served to strengthen my affection. But I am not going to ask you to bind yourself to me by any promise, even now. I feel it would not be fair to you. You are not yet through school, and after you graduate you will want to see something of the world; so I am going to leave you free to choose for yourself, in case you should ever meet any one else whom you might love more than you love me; I could better bear to lose you than to have you make a lifelong mistake.”

Allison here sat up and looked her lover full in the eye.

“Gerald, do you think it could be possible that you have made a mistake in what you have just told me?” she questioned.

“No, I am sure it would not be possible for me ever to love any one but you,” he earnestly returned.

“And do you think man capable of greater fidelity than woman?”

“N-o, perhaps not; still I will not exact any promise from you at present, Allison,” he gravely replied; “by and by, when you have completed your studies—when you have been out in society a while—when I have won my spurs, as the knights of old used to say—if you are then free, and of the same mind, I shall feel that I have a right to ask you to give yourself to me.”

“Oh, what a complicated and indefinite proposition!” said Allison, laughing, but with an impatient shrug of her graceful shoulders; “but what do you mean by ‘when you have won your spurs?’”

“Why, when I have made money enough to raise me above the suspicion of being a fortune-hunter,” was the smiling response.

“But suppose you do not achieve success by the time you have indicated?” queried Allison demurely.

“Then I suppose I must wait until I do,” with a sigh.

“Ah! I thought so,” she retorted saucily; “you are far too proud, my Gerald. Perhaps I am lacking in that quality, and I am very sure that I am not ‘morbidly conscientious,’ so I am going to make you promise me something, here and now.”

He smiled fondly down at her. She was so sweet and lovable, so charmingly frank, to let him see how dear he was to her, and yet not in the least unmaidenly about it.

“Very well; I will promise anything you ask,” he said tenderly; “but first, since I have confessed so much, let me hear you say that you love me.”

She leaned toward him with parted lips and gleaming eyes; she clasped her small, white hands, and laid them upon his breast.

“Gerald,” she breathed softly, “you know that I love you with all my heart.”

Again he folded her close, his face luminous with happiness.

“Bless you, my darling!” he said, with passionate earnestness. “Now you may ask me whatever you will.”

CHAPTER XII.

ALLISON AND HER GUARDIAN.

“Well, then, Gerald,” said Allison, regarding her lover earnestly, “you know, of course, that papa left me a lot of money.”

“Yes, I know that Mr. Brewster was supposed to be a very rich man,” the young man responded, with a regretful sigh.

“And one little body, like me, couldn’t begin to spend it all—especially when she is cooped up in a boarding school, and has an ogre of a guardian to hold her in check,” the young girl continued, with a mock, injured air.

“Well?” said Gerald, smiling at her mood, yet not suspecting toward what it was tending.

“You say that you—love me very much, Gerald?”

“Ah, my darling, I have no words to tell you all there is in my heart.”

“And you know that I—I am every bit as fond of you?” This with a shy look and blush that were almost bewildering.

“I trust so, dearest.”

“Then nothing should ever be allowed to come between us as a barrier.”

“No, indeed! Nothing ever shall come between us—at least, if I can prevent it,” rashly asserted this unsuspicious wooer.

A happy little laugh rippled over Allison’s scarlet lips at this assurance, and, laying her hands upon his shoulders, she looked straight into his eyes, while a gleam of triumph shone in her own.

“There!” she said, drawing a long breath; “now I have you just where I want you, and you must promise me that, when I have completed my studies, and you get back from Europe and are nicely established in your position—whether you have made a lot of money or not—you will take me just as I am. I shall have plenty, and there will be no reason why we should not share it together.”

“But, Allison——” Gerald began, looking flushed and embarrassed as, at least, he comprehended her meaning.

She playfully laid her slender fingers upon his lips; but he captured her hand, though with a very tender look into the lovely eyes upraised to his.

“You must let me finish what I was going to say, dear,” he said resolutely. “You must know that no man could respect himself to ask a woman to marry him if he could not give her a comfortable home and feel that he was, in every sense of the word, her protector. I never could be dependent upon your fortune, Allison,” he concluded, with an air of pride and decision which convinced her that there would be no use in discussing that point further.

She secretly admired him for the stand he had taken; but, womanlike, she wanted the last word.

“You said you would promise me anything I asked,” she said, with a pretty pout.

“But I did not think you would be guilty of taking such an unfair advantage of me,” Gerald retorted, laughing. “I cannot swear away my self-respect, to please even you,” and bending, he softly kissed the white brow that was resting against his shoulder.

“Well, but what has passed between us to-day makes you belong to me, does it not?” Allison questioned.

“Forever.”

“I don’t see, then, but that you have sworn yourself away,” she retorted slyly.

“Yes, I believe I have. What a lawyer you would have made, sweetheart!” Gerald responded, laughing again.

“Very well; it is a poor rule that will not work both ways,” Allison gravely observed; “I will not receive more than I am willing to give, and so, Gerald, our mutual watchword shall be ‘forever.’”

“My darling!” whispered the young lover, tears of emotion springing to his eyes, “surely such a spirit of loyalty should nerve my heart to any endeavor.”

“How can I let you go away across the ocean!” Allison broke forth, after a moment of silence, and in a voice of keen regret.

“Yes, it does seem a little hard that I must go,” Gerald returned; “but I am hoping a great deal from this coming year of experience with Mr. Lyttleton—I am impressed that it will be a stepping-stone toward the goal I wish to reach. Besides, I should not see much of you during the next six months, as, of course, you will soon return to school.”

“Yes; I am to go back on Saturday; but we will write to each other often.”

“Yes, I am sure there is no reason why we should not,” Gerald assented; “but, perhaps, it will be just as well that Mr. Hubbard should not know of our correspondence.”

“He will never learn of it from me,” said Allison spiritedly, and adding, with a sigh:

“Oh, I wish papa had not made him my guardian.”

“I can echo that wish most heartily,” her companion responded fervently; “and I cannot understand his doing so—allowing him such unlimited power over you, and making him sole executor of his will also; it does not seem at all like Mr. Brewster’s habitual shrewdness. By the way, has he given you your jewels, and the other box?”

“What other box? I have mama’s jewels—at least, they are in the safe in the library; Mr. Hubbard brought them directly here after the trial; but I know nothing about any other box.”

“Well, there were two boxes which I was to bring to your father; but possibly one of them contained things which do not concern you, papers, perhaps, relating to Mr. Brewster’s business. Still, I am impressed that he did not wish any one to know anything of it or its contents, and that was why he enjoined me to secrecy regarding my errand that Sunday.”

“I will ask Mr. Hubbard about it,” said Allison thoughtfully.

“Yes, I think I would,” her lover replied, “although I do not believe you will get any satisfaction from him; but it will at least let him know that you are aware of its existence and have some curiosity regarding the matter. But I must go now, dear,” he added, rising. “I have a good many things to do for myself during the week, and doubtless Mr. Lyttleton will require me at his office some of the time.”

“But you will come often between now and Saturday?” Allison pleaded, as she clasped both hands about his arms, as if loath to let him go.

“I will come as often as you like,” he answered, smiling.

“Then I shall look for you every evening; only I hope that Mr. Hubbard will not pop in upon us, and spoil everything.”

“Then every evening I will come,” Gerald replied, as he took a fond farewell of her, and went away with a very happy heart.

The remaining few days passed very swiftly to these young lovers, who spent their evenings together, without exciting the suspicions of John Hubbard, who, however, made some errand to call upon Allison almost every day.

Upon one occasion she questioned him about the box of which Gerald had spoken, asking what it contained.

“It is locked, and, as yet, I have found no key to it,” the man told her evasively, but with a quickly averted glance, which did not escape the fair girl’s watchful eyes. “Indeed, I have been too busy to think much about it,” he added; “but I imagine there is nothing in it but business papers.”

So Allison was none the wiser, as Gerald had prophesied, and on Saturday returned to her school, where, becoming absorbed in her studies, she soon forgot all about it for the time.

Gerald sailed for Europe the following Monday, and John Hubbard, upon learning of the fact, experienced a feeling of intense relief.

“Good riddance to him,” he muttered. “Now I need have no fear, for I shall have a clear field to myself.”

After Allison’s departure, Mr. Hubbard decided that it would be useless expense to keep the Brewster establishment running; consequently, he advertised it for rental, furnished, and it was taken almost immediately by a Philadelphia family, who, bringing their own servants with them, did not require any of the help who had served there so long; and thus, all the servants, with Mrs. Pollard, who had become exceedingly fond of Allison, and who felt that she was being driven from her home, were obliged to find situations elsewhere.

The house at Yonkers was disposed of in the same way; consequently, at the end of six months, when Allison had completed her education, she found herself practically homeless, until she could arrange to go to Newport for the summer, and so was obliged to take up her residence with her guardian, whose family consisted of only himself and his mother, with their servants.

They were not to go to Newport until the middle of July, as Mr. Hubbard had been so busy he had been unable to attend to the opening of the cottage; but he managed to make his own home so pleasant, and Allison so heartily welcome, while she found Mrs. Hubbard such a dear old lady, she was wholly content to remain with them.

He did not once refer to his previous proposal of marriage; he continued her the same liberal allowance which her father had made her, and gratified her every wish, making himself so agreeable and entertaining that all would probably have gone well but for an incident that occurred during the second week after her return.

Gerald returned about that time, and, feeling that Mr. Hubbard would not favor his calling upon her, she arranged to meet him at a certain point on Broadway, one day, when they were to go to Delmonico’s for lunch, and to talk over their experiences of the last half-year.

They had hardly met and greeted each other when, they were suddenly confronted by John Hubbard.

“Well, Allison, whither are you bound?” he inquired, stepping directly in her path, but without deigning Gerald even a glance of recognition.

The young girl paused aghast and flushed with mingled embarrassment and astonishment.

Then, recovering herself, her beautiful eyes began to blaze with indignation at the slight in her companion.

“Mr. Hubbard,” she said, glancing from him to Gerald, “do you not recognize Mr. Winchester?”

“I have no acquaintance with Mr. Winchester,” the man frigidly, but very unwisely, responded. “I was, however, just on my way home to get you to go with me to see that new painting at the Academy of Design.”

“I thank you, Mr. Hubbard,” Allison retorted, just as icily, “but I was on my way to lunch at Delmonico’s with Mr. Winchester. Come, Gerald.”

Whereupon Miss Brewster haughtily passed her guardian, and proceeded on her way, attended by her lover, who, although he bowed coldly to the man, found it difficult to restrain his anger at his insolence.

“But, Allison——” authoritatively began John Hubbard, looking back after the graceful, but proudly erect figure of his ward.

He might as well have addressed the paving-stones, for the independent little lady paid not the slightest heed to him.

“Gerald, I could almost strangle him for being so rude to you,” she remarked, when they were beyond hearing of the man.

“Never mind me, dear,” he replied, smiling, but regarding her with an admiring look. “I believe it would be worth while being snubbed occasionally for the sake of seeing you look so pretty in your righteous indignation over it.”

“He has been very good to me of late, and I had begun to like them—almost,” Allison explained; “but I believe this has made him more hateful to me than ever. However,” tossing her shining head defiantly, “I am not going to let it spoil our little visit together.”

They had their lunch, and a quietly jolly time over it, and then Allison insisted that Gerald himself should take her to see the painting of which Mr. Hubbard had spoken. They passed a couple of hours thus very pleasant, and then reluctantly separated.

But they decided that, in future, they would have to be more wary about their meetings; and, as Gerald was very busy, it was doubtful about their seeing much of each other before Allison went to Newport, and now the fair girl began to chafe sorely over the fact that her fate was so closely allied with the man who was so obnoxious to her.

When she reached home on this afternoon, she found John Hubbard there before her, and wearing a very injured air.

But she paid very little attention to him until, galled by her coolness toward him, he opened fire upon her.

“I was very sorry to meet you with that disreputable fellow today,” he began, when the indignant girl whirled around upon him like a small tornado.

“Mr. John Hubbard, you will be kind enough never to speak of my friend, Mr. Winchester, in that way again,” she cried, with flaming cheeks and blazing eyes; “and I will further say that I regard your rudeness to him to-day as a personal insult to me, also.”

The man gazed at her in astonishment. He was dumfounded by such an exhibition of temper. Her manner was usually characterized by a sweetness and quietness that gave one the impression that she could not be aroused to an exhibition of passion, although the determination and obstinacy which she had shown at Gerald’s trial had betrayed a strong will.

“Really, Allison,” he began, after a moment, and realizing that it would not be wise to antagonize her still further, “I meant no disrespect to you—you know that I have only the tenderest regard for you; but I was so taken aback upon seeing you upon the street with that—with young Winchester, I was hardly responsible for what I did or said. I have never changed my opinion regarding the young man, however, and it hurt me deeply to meet you with him.”

Allison opened her lips as if about to retort sharply to him again; but she suddenly checked herself, and turning from him, left the room without deigning him any reply.

But the man’s suspicions having been aroused, he resolved to watch his ward closely.

The result of his prying was the discovery of Gerald’s photograph, which he found in a box in one of Allison’s bureau-drawers, and with it his last letter from Europe, together with a couple of recent notes which told him a great deal regarding their relations to each other—enough to drive him into a white heat of rage, and arouse all his native villainy and cunning.

He had observed that Gerald had improved greatly during his absence abroad; he had grown more manly, while there was a prosperous look about him which betokened success and progression.

This was true, for Gerald had proved himself so congenial to his employer, and so thoroughly in earnest and determined to do his very best, that the two had at once become the best of friends, and at the end of three months Mr. Lyttleton raised his salary to a thousand a year. More than this, he had found his mental grasp so keen and forceful, that he had persuaded him to begin the study of law, under his supervision, and thus the young man found himself working out the very plan which his friend, Professor Emerson, had once suggested to him.

John Hubbard congratulated himself that he was so soon to get Allison away from New York, and he hurried his own work in order to prevent any delay in his plans.

But the afternoon previous to her departure the lovers had an enjoyable drive in Central Park, and on her return from this excursion, Allison met with an adventure which, although, at the time, it seemed unimportant in itself, was destined to result in great things later on.

As she had a few errands to attend to before going home, Gerald left her at one of the large stores on Broadway, after bidding her a reluctant farewell. She had completed her purchase, and had just left a fashionable millinery establishment, where she had bought “a love of a hat,” that was destined to do duty at the seaside, and was standing upon the curbing, waiting for an uptown car, when she observed a young girl, about fourteen years of age, leaning against a lamp-post, and crying bitterly.

She was poorly clad, was very pale, and wore a dejected, suffering air, which at once appealed to the tender heart of the young heiress, who also observed that a heavy bundle lay upon the sidewalk at her feet.

Stepping quietly to her side, Allison gently laid her hand upon her arm to attract her attention.

“Why are you crying?” she questioned in an earnest tone; “has anything happened to you?”

The girl turned her tear-stained face upon the speaker, and Allison saw that it was almost convulsed with pain.

With her right hand she pointed to her left arm, which, her companion now saw, hung limp and useless—broken—by her side.

The next moment the sufferer dropped senseless at her feet.

CHAPTER XIII.

“BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS.”

Allison’s first impulse was to scream for help. But she quickly conquered it, for she had a horror of becoming the center of a curious, gaping crowd upon a public thoroughfare.

Almost at the same moment she espied a policeman across the street, and beckoned him to come to her assistance; then, stooping over the senseless girl at her feet, tried to move her into a more comfortable position.

“What has happened?” queried the officer, as he appeared upon the spot. “A drunk, I reckon—eh?”

“No,” said Allison, flushing with indignation at his indifferent tone; “the girl’s arm is broken, and she has fainted.”

“Humph! then it’s a case for the hospital. I’ll ring up an ambulance,” was the perfunctory response.

Allison caught her breath sharply, for, like many others who are ignorant regarding such institutions, she had a perfect horror of a hospital.

“No,” she said quickly and decidedly, while she glanced up at a sign over a window in the next block, “Doctor Ashmore’s office is quite near—take her there.”

“She doesn’t look as if she could afford to pay a swell surgeon like Doctor Ashmore—she’s a better subject for the hospital, miss,” said the man slightingly.

“Well, but I am not going to allow her to be put into an ambulance and driven a long way over these rough pavements to any hospital,” Allison asserted decidedly. “I know Doctor Ashmore—he is a first-class surgeon, and I will be responsible for his charge. Now, pray do as I ask you, and do not let this poor thing lie here upon the hard sidewalk a moment longer” she concluded, somewhat impatiently, for people were beginning to gather about them.

“All right, miss; if you choose to look out for her, it’s no affair of mine,” said the policeman, and, calling another man to his aid, the two lifted the still unconscious girl and bore her into the noted surgeon’s office, Allison swiftly leading the way thither.

“I have brought you a patient, Doctor Ashmore,” she observed, as he entered, and the gentleman came forward to greet her, whereupon he ordered the men to deposit their burden upon a couch, and at once proceeded to make an examination of the case.

“The arm is broken above the elbow,” he observed, after ripping up the sleeve of the girl’s dress. “Who is this protégée of yours, Miss Brewster?”

“I do not know,” Allison replied; “I found her leaning against a lamp-post crying, and asked her what the trouble was, when she merely pointed to her arm, and then fainted away.”

“Well, we will soon have her comfortably fixed. Perhaps you would like to go into another room while I set the bone,” said Doctor Ashmore, after calling his assistant, and ordering him to bring splints, bandages, and other necessary appliances.

“No, thank you; the poor thing will perhaps feel better if she comes to herself and finds me here, and I will try not to mind the operation,” replied Allison, in a spirit of true self-abnegation, yet not feeling nearly so brave as her words had sounded.

Nothing more was said, and the surgeon proceeded at once about his task, without attempting to revive his patient, who was still unconscious.

But as his skilful fingers put the fractured bone into position, a low, shuddering moan plainly told that the shock and pain of the setting had resulted in restoring suspended animation.

But the girl made no other sound, no resistance; she lay white and motionless while the splints were adjusted, and the bandages arranged, and when all was over she raised herself to a sitting posture, and looked curiously about her.

“Where am I?” she inquired of Allison, as another patient entered, and claimed the surgeon’s attention.

“In the office of Doctor Ashmore. I asked a policeman to bring you here, so that your injury could be attended to immediately,” Allison explained; “and,” she added, smiling encouragingly into the pale, pinched face before her, “I am sure the worst is over.”

“Perhaps you think so—but that is all you know about it,” returned the girl grimly.

“But I have always heard that after a broken bone is once set, there is very little discomfort experienced while the fracture is mending.”

“Oh, the arm will do well enough,” said the girl, glancing at the bandaged member indifferently; “I wasn’t thinking about that at all.”

“What were you thinking about?” inquired Allison, with surprise.

“Of the money I’ve lost and the scoldings and abuse I shall get because I sha’n’t be able to do any work for the next few weeks,” returned the patient, with an anxious frown. “But where’s my bundle?” she questioned, with a sudden start, and glancing around the room with a troubled air.

“Over there behind that chair,” said Allison, pointing it out. Then she asked: “Now will you tell me your name, and how you happened to get hurt?”

“My name is Ellen Carson,” the girl replied; “I had been to Cohen & Isaacs, to carry back a lot of work, and get some more, and the pay for the last. I live with my aunt, or my uncle’s wife, and I do the housework, while she and Anna—my cousin—make boys’ jackets for a living. I help on them, too, after the drudgery is done, and I always have to fetch and carry the bundles. I had the pay for the last lot—three dollars—in one hand, and was hurrying home, when an ugly-looking fellow gave me a rough push, knocking me against that lamp-post, then snatched the purse, and made off with it, before I hardly knew what had happened. At first I was so wild over losing the money, and what I should catch when I got home, I didn’t know that I was hurt; but, after a minute or two, the pain got so sharp it took my breath away, and then I found my arm was broken. Oh, dear! Aunt Lu will just about kill me for letting that money be stolen,” Ellen concluded, with a sob, great tears chasing over her hollow cheeks.

“Hush! Do not cry! I will make the money part of it all right,” said Allison kindly, a great pity for the unfortunate girl surging through her heart. “I am sure your aunt cannot be very kind to you if she will mind the loss of three dollars more than your accident.”

“Kind! huh!” exclaimed Ellen, with a mirthless laugh, “and she’ll mind the broken arm enough, too, but not in the way you mean; she and Anna will have to do the housework now for a while, and I shall get plenty of kicks and cuffs for being in the way and ‘not earning my salt.’ I sha’n’t get much but salt, either, I imagine, to pay for losing that money.”

“Oh, I cannot imagine any one being so cruel,” said Allison, looking deeply troubled. “Your aunt must be very poor, as well as unkind.”

“You bet she is; but it wasn’t always so bad as it is now,” Ellen observed, and, growing confidential. “When Uncle Alan—he was my mother’s brother, and his name was Brown—was alive, I used to go to school, and we lived in a better part of the city. Anna graduated from the high school more’n four years ago; she’s handsome, too—or would be if she could have pretty clothes like yours”—this with an appreciative glance at Allison’s dainty costume. “After Uncle Alan died, Aunt Lu at first threatened to send me to an orphans’ home; but when she found how handy I was in the kitchen, and to run on errands, she got over that, though she doesn’t mind twitting me about being a beggar every day of my life.”

“But does she not pay you something for doing the work and helping upon the jackets?” questioned Allison, with almost a sense of guilt as she compared the ideal life which she had always led with the miserable existence of this poor, abused child.

“Pay me! Good land! Uncle Alan has been dead going on four years, and I haven’t had a dime of my own to spend at one time since. Sometimes I’ve got so desperate I’ve thought I’d run away and leave Aunt Lu and Anna to shift for themselves, and become a cash-girl in some store, but I haven’t a decent dress or a whole pair of shoes or stockings to my name, and nobody’d hire me looking like this,” the girl concluded, as she glanced ruefully down at her faded dress, and the clumsy, defaced shoes upon her feet.

Tears involuntarily rushed to Allison’s eyes, as they fell upon her costly, well-filled purse, and she realized for the first time in her life that she had never known the meaning of the word “poverty.” Again a sense of guilt swept over her as she thought of the dainty ten-dollar boots and the silken stockings that encased her feet—of the expensive hat upon her head, and the many other accessories of her toilet, the price of one of which would have seemed like a small fortune to this destitute girl.

“I suppose you thought you were doing a good thing when you had me brought in here?” Ellen resumed, after a moment of silence, and glancing around the luxurious room they were in; “but Aunt Lu will never pay Doctor Ashmore for setting my arm—he’s one of your swell, high-priced doctors; you would have done better if you’d sent me to some hospital.”

“I couldn’t,” said Allison; “somehow, I have a prejudice against a hospital; but you need not worry about Doctor Ashmore’s fee—I am going to pay him myself.”

“H’m! that’s very good of you, and you must have lots of spare cash to be able to sling it about in that way,” Ellen observed, with a wistful glance at the silver-tipped pocketbook in Allison’s daintily gloved hand. “But,” starting to her feet, “I must be getting along home, though goodness knows how I am going to carry that bundle with only one hand, and—and my knees have a queer, shaky feeling in them, too,” she concluded, growing pale and sinking back upon the couch again.

“Where do you live?” Allison questioned, in a voice that was somewhat husky.

“Down on Greenwich Street.”

“Oh!” breathed the petted child of fortune, with a shiver of repulsion; and then she abruptly crossed the room to speak to the surgeon’s assistant. She asked him if he would call a carriage for her, after which she went thoughtfully back to her protégée.

“I am going to send you and your bundle home in a carriage,” she said to her; “and now tell me, please, was it exactly three dollars that was stolen from you this morning?”

“Yes, just the price of a dozen jackets.”

“What! you do not mean that you only get that amount for making a dozen jackets?” exclaimed Allison, aghast.

“That is all—just twenty-five cents apiece,” said the girl, with a confirmative nod.

Allison opened her purse, and took from it three dollars.

“Ellen,” she said, in a very winning tone, “I am going to give you that much to take to your aunt, so that she cannot blame you for the loss.”

“My! but ain’t you good!” breathed the girl, with a long, grateful sigh, as she reached eagerly for the money.

“Wait,” said Allison; “I will get an envelope from Doctor Ashmore to put it in—it will be safer so,” and going to the surgeon, who was now writing at his desk, she asked him to give her two.

She placed the three dollars in one, then returned to Ellen, to whom she gave it, and who hastily thrust it into the bosom of her dress.

“Now,” continued Allison, “I am sorry that I cannot know how you will get on with your arm, for I am going to leave the city for the summer to-morrow morning. But, of course, you will have to come to Doctor Ashmore occasionally, and I shall learn from him how you are, when I return, and perhaps then I can help you to find something to do in a pleasanter home——”

“Oh, would you?—will you?” cried the girl, with pathetic eagerness. “I should love you with all my heart for it.”

Allison was almost ready to weep as she met the wistful eyes uplifted to hers.

“I will try, if you will leave your address with Doctor Ashmore,” she replied, as she quietly slipped a ten-dollar bill into the other envelope; “and now I am going to give you this for your very own,” she continued, as she tucked her gift into Ellen’s hand; “you can do whatever you like with it.”

“For me! Oh! do you mean that you have given me all that? Ten dollars!” gasped the astonished girl, whose quick eyes had detected the denomination of the bill. “Have you a right to give away so much money? What will your father and mother say? Why, I can’t believe it!”

Her voice shook from intense excitement and the hand that held the coveted sum trembled visibly.

“Yes, Ellen, I have the right to give away what I like, and I have no father nor mother, I regret to say, to question my pleasure in that respect. You need not say anything about it to your aunt unless you choose.”

“I guess I sha’n’t tell either Aunt Lu or Anna a word about it,” Ellen hastily interposed. “I shouldn’t have it long if I did. I shall keep very mum, and when my arm gets well, I will make a good use of it,” she added, with a gleam of triumph in her eyes that Allison never forgot. Then, with something very like a sob, she continued: “Why, miss, I think I must feel something like the slave I read about not long ago, when his master gave him his liberty: ‘I ’clar to goodness,’ he said, ‘dis am a new world to me!’ This money means freedom to me and a new world to live in. How I love you for being so kind to me! I—I hope you do not mind my saying it”—in an apologetic tone—“I know I’m of no account, but I haven’t had anybody to love since my mother died, seven years ago.”

Allison was deeply touched by the girl’s emotion, and the pathos of this last remark.

“Indeed, Ellen, you are of a great deal of account,” she returned, with a winning smile; “and when I come back to the city, in the fall, I will try to see you again, and I hope I shall find you well and happier than you are to-day. Ah, I think the carriage has come for you,” she concluded, as Doctor Ashmore’s attendant at that moment returned, accompanied by the coachman, who had come for the bundle.

The surgeon then came forward, gave his patient some directions, making an appointment for her to come to him again in a few days, after which Allison bade her a kind good-by, paid the hackman his fare, and charged him to “be sure and carry the bundle into the house for Ellen when she reached home.”

Then Allison turned to Doctor Ashmore and requested him to name his charge for setting the broken arm.

He smiled into her beautiful, earnest face.

“Are you in the habit of picking up disabled protégées in the streets of New York, Miss Allison?” he questioned.

“No; I am ashamed to say that this is my first experience of anything of the kind,” Allison gravely replied; “but it would have been inhuman to have left her lying there upon the pavement, or to have allowed her to be carried away to a hospital, when help was so near. I knew, too, that she could not fall into better hands than yours.”

“Thank you for your tribute and confidence,” said the surgeon, in a gratified tone, “but there will be no charge for what I have done.”

“Oh, but I never should have presumed to bring her here if I had not expected to be responsible for her fee,” Allison exclaimed, and flushing sensitively.

“I understand; but I think you have already done your share for that poor, forsaken-looking child,” the man kindly responded. “I like to do a good deed once in a while myself, so we will not talk any more about the fee.”

He had not been unmindful of what had occurred between the two girls, notwithstanding he had appeared to be absorbed in other things.

Allison thanked him heartily for his personal interest in the case, and then, after a few moments of friendly chatting, bade him good afternoon, and went home, having received a vivid object lesson upon human poverty and suffering which she felt she should never forget, and little thinking how the “bread which had that day been cast upon the waters” would be returned to her after many days.

CHAPTER XIV.

A TERRIBLE REVELATION.

The next morning after her adventure with Ellen Carson, Allison left New York for Newport, where the Brewster villa was reopened, with John Hubbard to play the part of proprietor and host, and mature his plans for the capture of the beautiful heiress for whom and whose money he had so long been scheming.

To Allison the thought of spending the entire summer in the same house with the man whom she so disliked seemed intolerable, and she became very restless and rebellious in view of the prospect before her ere a week had passed.

“What shall I do with myself during all the years that will intervene before his authority over me or my fortune will expire?” she asked herself, with a feeling of excessive impatience, one day during the second week of their sojourn at Newport.

Yet the man was unwearied in his attentions, unvarying in his kindness to her. He spared no trouble to give her pleasure, he grumbled at no expense if he could but see her smiling and happy, and be allowed to bask in her presence.

“I cannot live an idle, aimless life,” she mused, “while I am waiting for Gerald to make his fortune. Oh, what a proud, obstinate boy! But why doesn’t he write to me? I have not heard from him once since coming to Newport,” she sighed, with a troubled expression. “I would like to teach,” she went on, after a moment of thought; “but it hardly seems right for me, with my fortune, to apply for a position which would otherwise be filled by a girl who must support herself. But something I must do to break away from this bondage. Oh, I know!” with an eager start. “It will be just the most delightful plan! I will have a chaperon, and I will travel. It will be such a blessed relief to get away from—him!”

And, much elated with what she considered a very clever plan, she sought her guardian and made known her wish to go abroad.

The man glanced sharply at her the moment he comprehended her purpose; then sat quietly listening to her until she concluded the rehearsal of her plan, which was, in the main, that she wished to have at least a couple of years of foreign travel before making her début in New York society—which it would not be etiquette for her to do until her season of mourning was over.

When she was through he changed his seat to one beside her, and remarked, with a confidential look and smile:

“Really, Allison, I think it rather singular that you and I both should have the same project in view.”

She glanced up at him in surprise.

“Why, have you been planning such a trip for me?” she questioned, with a momentary twinge of conscience, lest she had been more unjust toward him than he merited.

“Yes,” he replied, in a tone which he could not make quite steady, for the proposal he was about to make was a very momentous one to him. “You are now through school, and it is but right that you should see something of the world. I have had this in mind for some time, and have been trying to arrange for it. I now have my business in such shape that I can leave it indefinitely, and we will have a long holiday, Allison; we will spare neither time nor money, and you shall go wherever your sweet will inclines.”

The girl shot one quick, startled look at her companion; then a burning flush suffused her neck, cheek and brow, for his tone had grown suspiciously tender and tremulous, and she dreaded inexpressibly what she feared was to come.

“Oh, but I did not once think of—of taking you from your business to go with me,” she hastened to say. “I can have a chaperon, you know; there is Miss Wilber, my teacher in history, who has often attended young ladies abroad during summer vacations. She is out of health, and will not teach the coming year, and I am sure she would be glad to go with me; she would be a delightful companion, too, for she is so well posted in history, and has been about so much she is a perfect encyclopedia of facts, legends and traditions. I should feel perfectly safe, and be very happy with her, also.”

“Ah, yes; no doubt it would be a very good arrangement, both for yourself and the lady,” rejoined John Hubbard, when Allison paused, although a frown swept over his face at her evident eagerness to substitute her own plan for his; “but, my dear child, I could never consent to let you go away to Europe like that; I should never know one moment of peace during your absence. Allison,” with sudden and vehement earnestness, “do you remember what I told you only a few months ago—that I have loved you ever since you were a little girl, and that, during all those years, I have had only one aim in life—that of eventually winning you for my wife? Think of it, Allison! I have lived nearly eleven years with this one hope to feed upon and cheer me. I know that I am somewhat older than you, but my affection is none the less strong and true—indeed, having nursed my hopes so long, my love is far more intense than it could have been at the age when a man usually chooses his wife. My darling, I adore you; my life is bound up in you; I must win you, or the world will henceforth be a blank to me, and during the last six months I have yearned for this moment more than I can express. Allison, you will marry me; you will be my wife, and we will go abroad for our honeymoon. I will live only to make you happy, and you shall go where you like if you will but give me the right to go with you.”

He had spoken so rapidly that Allison could not have interrupted him if she had wished; he had poured out his passionate avowal with such resistless vehemence that she was stricken dumb, and sat with averted face, an almost sickening sense of repugnance, even fear, oppressing her.

As he concluded he leaned forward, laying his hand upon hers, which were tensely clasped upon her lap, and tried to look into her downcast eyes.

His touch broke the spell upon her.

Almost involuntarily she shrank from him, snatching her hands from his, a visible shiver creeping over her, and driving every particle of color from her face.

“Oh,” she gasped, as if oppressed by some terrible weight upon her chest, “why will you say such things to me? No, no; it cannot be!”

The man’s countenance changed, as if he had been smitten a sharp and sudden blow.

“Do not tell me that,” he breathed, in a hoarse, unnatural voice. “I cannot bear it. I have lived too long with only this one hope to sustain me, to have it ruthlessly wrested from me at this late day.”

Something in the man’s tone—a sort of despairing, appealing note—sent a wave of pity coursing through Allison’s heart.

“I am sorry if I have pained you,” she faltered; “but—I cannot love you, Mr. Hubbard, and so I must not marry you.”

“I will make you love me, Allison,” he returned, with almost pathetic earnestness. “Out of the superabundance of my own affection I will nourish yours until your heart will turn to me as naturally as a flower turns to the sun.”

But Allison only shrank farther from him.

“It is impossible; it can never be,” she said, so decidedly there was no mistaking her determination to settle the matter for all time.

“Why?” he demanded, sharply, but with quivering lips. “Why can you never love me? How is it that you are so positive?”

“I do not know that I can tell you why; it is not easy to analyze one’s feelings,” Allison responded constrainedly. “I only know that I do not love you and that it would be a great sin to become your wife without loving you.”

“Then it must be because some one stands between us,” said John Hubbard, with jealous bitterness. “Tell me! Is is so? Do you love some one else?”

There was now a note of impatient authority in his tone that aroused Allison’s antagonism and a spirit of recklessness. Then, too, his love-making was so repulsive to her she felt that she could not endure it a moment longer. Perhaps, she thought, if she should confess the truth to him it would put an end to his hopes and emancipate her from all persecutions of this nature in the future.

“Yes,” she admitted, after a moment of hesitation, a vivid flush suffusing her face, “that is the reason.”

“Aha!” he breathed, hoarsely, the veins upon his temples standing out hard and full. “So you confess it! Who is he? Who is he?”

His tone was almost savage, his aspect so vindictive that Allison was aroused in proportion.

She turned upon him with a haughty air, and met his lowering eyes with a clear, cold glance.

“That is my own secret,” she frigidly returned.

“Ha, ha! So you fondly believe it is a secret, do you?” he mockingly retorted. “You imagine that no one has eyes or perceptions to discern the signs of the times? My haughty little lady, your ‘secret’ is no secret; I have read your heart, like an open book, for many a long year.”

“Very well, then; if you are so well versed in mind reading there is no need of your asking information regarding what you already know,” said the fair girl, with quiet sarcasm.

“Perhaps not; but I wish to have my suspicions corroborated by the testimony of your own lips. I want to be sure that my fate is irrevocably sealed before I bow to it. So, tell me, is it Gerald Winchester whom you love? Is he the rival upon whom you expect to bestow your peerless self and your enviable fortune?”

Again Allison flushed a deep and conscious crimson. The man’s manner had grown so coarse and repulsive, while his mocking reference to Gerald set all her pulses tingling with indignation and defiance, and a desire to stand up in defense of her lover.

“And suppose you are right in your surmise—what then?” she demanded, proudly, a dangerous gleam in her eyes.

“In that case, I tell you that you are doomed to be terribly disappointed, for I swear that you shall never marry that upstart! He shall never have the privilege of handling one dollar of Adam Brewster’s fortune!” snarled the man, but so beside himself with rage his voice was hardly audible.

Allison was now thoroughly angry and disgusted.

She sprang to her feet and confronted her companion with haughty mien and blazing eyes.

“You are exceedingly presuming,” she began scornfully. “You are overstepping the bounds of your authority as my guardian, for I certainly have and shall exercise the right to choose for myself whom I will marry, and——”

“And what, Allison?” questioned John Hubbard, growing very white as she suddenly paused. “This is a matter that must be settled, here and now, so you may as well express yourself freely.”

“I was simply going to observe that my choice would certainly not fall upon yourself, even were I heart-whole,” she retorted, with startling candor, and driven to utter defiance by his arbitrary tone and manner.

The man flushed scarlet beneath the scathing words; then a lurid light sprang into his eyes.

“I am afraid you do not realize what you are doing, Miss Brewster, by so scornfully rejecting my suit,” he said, with an evident effort for self-control.

“You have driven me to plain speaking, sir,” Allison replied more calmly. “You would not accept my courteous rejection of your proposals, and you have made me very angry by your slighting remarks about Mr. Winchester, whom you have always appeared to hate, and whom you have also shamefully persecuted.”

“Yes, I have hated and do still hate him, the insufferable upstart, with his assumption of high-toned airs, which are entirely at variance with the beggardly position he has always occupied,” Mr. Hubbard almost hissed, a cold glitter in his eyes, and with the old vicious gleam of his white teeth beneath his mustache. “More than that,” he resumed cruelly, “I swore long ago that he should never marry you, as I plainly saw he was aiming to do by worming himself into the confidence of your father and making love to you on the sly——”

“If you please, Mr. Hubbard, I think we have discussed this subject sufficiently, and I would like to change it,” Allison here icily interposed. “I have decided that I will spend the next two years traveling; therefore, I shall write to Miss Wilber this evening to——”

“Not quite so fast, my young lady, if you please,” her guardian rudely interrupted. “You appear to forget or ignore the fact that you are under my authority, and are not free to arrange your movements exactly as you like without my consent.”

“I am more than eighteen years of age, Mr. Hubbard,” said Allison, proudly, “and I am capable of thinking and acting for myself in all ways except the management of my fortune. Business I do not understand, and I bow to the decree of my father’s will that you shall act as my agent financially; but I am no longer a child, to be told that I cannot go here or there, provided I am properly attended, and I shall arrange to go abroad immediately, with Miss Wilber as my chaperon.”

“Excuse me, Miss Brewster, but you will not go abroad this summer, unless you go under my protection, and as my wife,” John Hubbard observed, with a peculiar smile, that was exceedingly exasperating, and which also sent a strange chill to the heart of his listener. “You’d better be sensible and listen to reason, Allison,” he continued more gently, after a moment of silence. “If you will accede to my proposal, your future may be one long idyl of happiness; your every wish shall be gratified; you shall be a queen—I your slave. But,” sternly, as the girl made an impatient gesture, “if you defy me, I——”

“Well, what if I defy you?” she cried, turning upon him with the air of a princess.

“I have it in my power to crush you.”

A light, scornful laugh rippled over Allison’s red lips.

The idea of a man like John Hubbard, whom, all her life, she had instinctively regarded as her inferior, being able to “crush” her, Adam Brewster’s daughter, and heiress to a million or more, seemed ludicrous in the extreme.

“You appear to be skeptical regarding my powers, Miss Brewster,” the man observed, with a crafty smile, but with a face that was ghastly white from his intense anger.

“Well, yes, I am,” she dryly responded, as she drew forth her watch and glanced at the time. “Excuse me,” she added coldly, “but I have an engagement to drive at four.”

She was about to turn away and leave the room when her companion seized her hand in a vise-like grip, and, bending before her, gazed straight into her eyes with a look that sent a cold chill running down her back.

“Once more, and for the last time—and think well before you answer me—will you marry me, Allison?” he questioned, through his tightly locked teeth.

“No! a thousand times, no!” she cried, in a ringing tone; “and if you ever broach the subject again I will appeal to be set free from your guardianship. I will not submit to such persecution.”

“Ha, ha! You will not need to appeal to be freed from my authority!” he retorted, with an almost fiendish leer.

“Ah! you are going to resign your position, perhaps?” said Allison, with an eagerness which but too plainly betrayed her delight at such a prospect.

“You would be glad to have me do so, no doubt,” he sneered.

“Yes, I think I would,” the girl gravely returned, after a moment of thought. “After what has occurred to-day I think it would be unpleasant for both of us to continue our present relations.”

“Very well; you shall be gratified, for it is my purpose to resign all authority over you,” said John Hubbard, with peculiar emphasis. Then he added, with something between a sigh and a groan, “I would have spared you this, Allison, and it is not too late even now to—to save you, if you will but reconsider your rejection of me——”

Allison checked him with an imperative gesture.

“I will have no more of that,” she said, haughtily. “But what do you mean? From what is it not too late to save me? Why are you about to resign your guardianship of me?”

“To answer your last question will be to reply to all—because I was appointed as guardian to Adam Brewster’s daughter, but—you are no child of the late banker!”

CHAPTER XV.

AN APPALLING SECRET.

Allison regarded her companion in silent astonishment for a full minute after his astounding communication.

“I do not understand you,” she said, at last, and she looked as if she had not in the least comprehended his statement.

“I have told you that you are not the daughter of Adam Brewster,” John Hubbard stolidly reasserted.

An incredulous expression swept over the girl’s beautiful face.

“That is an assertion too absurd to be heeded,” she said, and turning again, as if to leave the room.

The man placed himself in her path, thus intercepting her.

“I have told you only the truth,” he said, with cold deliberateness. “There is not one drop of Adam Brewster’s blood in your veins; you are of no kin to either him or the late Mrs. Brewster—so called.”

“Who—am—I—then?” came slowly from Allison’s white lips, for at last the arrow had struck home, although she did not appear to have heeded the last two ambiguous words which the man had uttered.

“I do not know; no one knows,” he answered, with cruel indifference.

“I do not believe it—I will not believe it! You will have to prove it!” the girl cried, tremulously.

“I can prove it.”

“Then I demand proof, here and now—this instant!” with an imperative stamp of her foot.

John Hubbard left the room without a word. In less than three minutes he returned, carrying in his hands one of the boxes which had been found in Gerald’s possession on that fatal Sunday morning of the previous winter.

He set it upon a table, placed a chair before it, and motioned for Allison to be seated.

“In that box you will find the proof of what I have told you,” he said; then added, as if impelled by a twinge of remorse: “I would have saved you this, Allison, had you been reasonable.”

“Reasonableness! Do you call it unreasonable for a girl to refuse to be coerced into an uncongenial marriage?” she cried, passionately, her face flaming scarlet, although she was trembling from head to foot with mingled suspense and apprehension.

“Where is the key to this?” she demanded, sinking into the chair before the table and without giving the man a chance to reply.

He took a ring of keys from his pocket, detached one from it, and passed it to her without speaking.

Allison could not have been whiter if she had been carved from marble as she inserted the tiny bit of brass in the lock, turned it, and threw open the cover of the mysterious box.

A low, inarticulate cry broke from her as she caught sight of the infant’s clothing within, and instantly surmised the truth; yet, even in her amazement and horror over the terrible revelation, she noted how exquisitely fine was the material from which the garments had been made—how rich the various trimmings—how pure the tiny diamond that gleamed in the small golden key that was pinned upon the yoke of the little dress.

She removed the articles one by one, laying them upon the table, until she emptied the box of all its contents save that brief note, written by the unknown mother, and Mrs. Brewster’s confession to her husband.

Allison unfolded the letter first, and read it through to the end without making a sign of the suffering that nearly cleft her heart in twain, as she realized how, in an instant of time, as it were, she had been cut adrift from every human tie that had bound her to her supposed parents.

Then she perused the other, studying every line and dot of the few brief words which had doubtless been penned by the hand of her own mother.

“Well,” she said, at last, in a hollow voice, “is this the extent of your revelations upon this subject?”

“Is it not sufficient to prove that you are not Adam Brewster’s child?” the man questioned.

“Yes,” said Allison, chocking back a sob; “there can be no doubt that I was only an adopted child——”

“You were not even adopted,” John Hubbard interposed. “There was no one living who knew the secret when Adam Brewster discovered it, and he was far too shrewd a man to betray it by taking out papers of adoption at that late day, and thus run the risk of having the world learn the truth. Why he should have spoiled everything by retaining these proofs is more than I can understand. If he had burned them immediately after reading Mrs. Brewster’s confession no one would ever have known that you were not his child.”

“How came you to have this box?” Allison questioned, after a thoughtful silence.

“Why, having been Mr. Brewster’s attorney and your guardian, it became my duty to examine everything connected with his affairs, and this——”

“Aha!” exclaimed Allison, with a start. “I believe this was one of the two boxes which my father sent Gerald to get that Sunday when you found him in the bank vault. I understand, now, why he did this,” she went on, breathlessly. “He knew that he could trust Gerald implicitly, never to speak of his errand to any one—never to mention the existence of anything which he wished to conceal, and he intended, without doubt, to destroy the contents of this box, and so blot out of existence every vestige of this secret.”

“Well, yes, I should say that you have analyzed the situation very accurately,” her companion observed, as she paused, although he had given an impatient shrug at her tribute to Gerald.

“Then if you knew—if you realized this, you have been false to your trust,” Allison indignantly continued. “You have not carried out my father’s wishes. Why could you not have respected them? Why have you revealed this secret to me?”

“I have my reasons,” the man sullenly returned.

“Well,” said the girl, tremulously, “if you have done this simply to be revenged upon me because I rejected your proposal of marriage, you have at least succeeded in giving me a terrible shock; you have, in a sense, robbed me of my birthright; but you can never rob me of the knowledge that Mr. and Mrs. Brewster both loved and cherished me with all the tenderness which an own father and mother could experience for their child. He certainly proved this by every act of his life, and by making me the sole heir to his wealth. The one thing I cannot understand is his making you my guardian and investing you with so much power over me. I rebelled against it at the outset; I am more than ever unreconciled to it to-day, and I will submit to it no longer. I know that I have the right to appeal for a change of guardian, and I intend to avail myself of it,” she concluded, with considerable warmth.

“Please allow me to remind you of what I have already stated—that I am about to resign the honor which Mr. Brewster conferred upon me,” John Hubbard returned, in a tone, and with a look so sinister that Allison felt her flesh creep.

“I am very glad,” she replied, coldly. “It will at least save me considerable trouble and worry.”

“Thank you,” he stiffly rejoined; “but possibly you may not feel quite so elated when I tell you that the revelation which I have just made was but to prepare you for another of a far more serious nature.”

“More trouble! Oh, I can bear no more!” moaned Allison to herself, although she made no visible sign, except to grasp the arms of her chair convulsively and try to brace herself for what was to come.

She began to feel spent from the excitement which she had already undergone, and it seemed as if she could not endure another blow like that which had just fallen upon her.

“Yes, I am afraid there is more trouble for you,” said John Hubbard, with a smile of cruel triumph over her suffering.

Now that he was convinced that he could never win her, he was prepared to ruthlessly crush her, with all possible despatch, and his plans had long been matured to this end.

“But,” he returned, after a slight pause, “I want you to understand that you have brought judgment upon your own head. I would have been glad to shield you from every pang. You need never have learned this secret, or have been shorn of a single luxury. As it is, however, it becomes my duty to tell you that you are no longer the heiress you have supposed yourself to be. The rich Miss Brewster, the belle, the beauty, will be dethroned—hurled from her high position in the world into poverty and obscurity by one blow from the ax of fate.”

The seeming absurdity of such a statement acted like an electric shock to Allison.

“What do you mean?” she demanded, whirling haughtily around upon the speaker. “I may not be Adam Brewster’s own child—that is a fact which I am forced to admit; but that it deprives me of the fortune which he left me, by will, or of the position in society to which he reared me, I do not admit. Your authority as my guardian is not powerful enough for that, and you know, as well as I, that my father spent his life accumulating his money with the hope and the intention that I should inherit it.”

“Your conclusions are well drawn, Miss Brewster, and I should not presume, upon my own authority, to controvert them,” John Hubbard returned, with an air of mock humility and a deprecatory glance; “but, unfortunately, a power more potent than any which I possess is at work against your interests.”

“I do not understand you,” said Allison, coldly, but with a sinking heart, for the man’s manner was very ominous.

“Well, then, to bring the matter before you in a nutshell, a woman calling herself Mrs. Adam Brewster has recently presented herself, claiming to be the legal wife of your late father, so called, and certain property rights. In fact, she proposes to dispute Mr. Brewster’s will and your right of inheritance.”

“It is false! I do not believe it!” cried Allison, starting wildly to her feet. “Who is this woman? Where is she? I pronounce her an impostor!”

“Pray do not allow yourself to become excited, Miss Brewster,” said her companion, with formal politeness. “I foresaw, of course, that this would be a great trial to you, and I hoped that the matter might be compromised quietly—to save scandal and your feelings, you understand. It could have been so arranged if—if you had consented to become my wife. You would then have retained your proper position in life, and the loss of a part of your fortune need never have been known. I would have paid Mrs. Brewster what she demands, and the whole affair could have been hushed up, since she cares more for money than for the notoriety of becoming known as the late banker’s wife.”

“I do not believe one word of it! She is an impostor!” Allison reiterated. “My father never made a second marriage. He loved my mother far too well ever to put another in her place.”

“Ah, pardon me, Miss Brewster, but I fear that I have not even yet made myself quite plain,” returned the villain, his white teeth gleaming viciously under his mustache. “Mrs. Brewster does not claim that she is the second wife; she asserts that she is the first—the only wife——”

“What!” almost shrieked Allison, as she sank back, pale and breathless, upon her chair. “What is this that you dare tell me? Oh, you do not know what you are saying! You are making my lovely precious mother no wife at all!”

“Exactly; that is just what the aspirant for the Brewster fortune claims,” began the wily expert.

“It is not true! There is not a word of truth in the dreadful story!” interposed the unhappy girl, in heart-broken tones, a shudder of repugnance shaking her from head to foot.

“No doubt it seems hard, and there are a good many hard things in the world. I have found it so in my own experience,” her companion replied, with significant emphasis; “but, unfortunately for you, the lady brings proofs which appear incontestible.”

“I will not listen to them! I will have them refuted! I will engage the best counsel in New York, and leave no stone unturned to defend the reputation of my dear father and mother,” Allison wildly declared.

Her companion looked somewhat disconcerted in view of her threat; but, after a moment, leaned toward her and said, in low, stern, rapid tones:

“All vehement denial and denunciation can do your cause no good. I have seen this woman who claims to be Mrs. Brewster. I have seen and read letters and documents which prove her statement that she was married to Adam Brewster some three years prior to his marriage to the lady whom you called mother. She says they only lived together a very short time; a violent quarrel and the discovery that they were not congenial resulted in a separation, she going to a distant city in the West to reside, and where, out of motives of revenge, she caused a notice of her death to be inserted in a newspaper and sent to her husband. A few years afterward she saw an announcement of Mr. Brewster’s marriage to a Miss Porter, of Massachusetts.”

“Horrible! But if all this is true, why did she not make her claim upon him at that time? Why wait all these years before claiming her rights?” Allison demanded, as Mr. Hubbard paused.

“That is easily explained,” he returned. “Mr. Brewster took his bride immediately abroad. She did not know when he returned, and could learn nothing regarding him until after the death of the second Mrs. Brewster. She says that later she did seek him, and demanded recognition as his wife. Of course, it was a terrible blow to him to learn how she had deceived him, but he would have nothing to say to her; he repudiated her utterly. The only thing he would agree to was to pay her a certain amount annually, as hush money, for she threatened to expose the facts of the case unless he would make some arrangement with her.”

“I do not believe it,” Allison again stoutly affirmed. “It was not like my father to pay ‘hush money’ to any one. He was always open and aboveboard in all his dealings; besides, he never appeared to have any trouble or burden upon his mind, as he must have had if he had stood in constant fear of a public scandal.”

“All the same, Miss Brewster, your father was married—it was a secret marriage, too—three years previous to his union with Miss Porter. It occurred during the last year of his college course in New Haven. Mrs. Brewster can produce prima facie evidence of the fact in the form of old letters and a certificate, and I have also seen the record of the marriage license in the city archives.”

“Why, then, did not this woman come forward at the time of papa’s death, and contest his will? Why has she waited all these months?” questioned Allison, with white, quivering lips.

“Simply because I have not allowed her to do so; because I have been striving to protect your interests—trying to temporize with her,” said Mr. Hubbard, with a would-be effective sigh. “She would have been content with half, and I could then have saved the other half for you, if you had been reasonable and listened to my suit. I could thus have protected you from every ill; indeed, I never would have wounded you by allowing you to suspect anything of what has been revealed to you to-day. You perceive what you have brought upon yourself by defying me.”

Allison lifted a death-white face to the speaker, but there was a gleam in her eyes that made him quail before her.

“Mr. John Hubbard, I would rather be a beggar in the streets—I would rather be a street sweeper, earning a penny at a time, than be the wife of such a man as you,” she said with deliberate scorn. “You are cold, cruel, unprincipled, or you would never have conducted yourself as you have to-day; you would never have sought to be revenged upon one who was helplessly consigned to your power because, not loving you, she refused to marry you.”

“Very well. You have sealed your own doom. Henceforth I shall act in the interests of Mr. Brewster’s legal wife and daughter.”

CHAPTER XVI.

DO YOUR WORST.

“Daughter!” gasped Allison, a feeling of utter despair at her heart, as John Hubbard gave utterance, in a tone of fiendish triumph, to that last word. “Do you mean to tell me that papa has an own daughter living?”

“Yes—Miss Anna Brewster, who is a young lady a few years your senior. A fine-looking girl she is, too—a brilliant brunette, resembling her mother, who must also have been a handsome woman when she was young,” John Hubbard responded, as he covertly watched his companion.

Allison sat silently thinking for several moments, but at last she looked up at the man, meeting his eyes with a steadfast look.

“In spite of all you say, I do not believe it,” she said, with a quiet positiveness. “If that woman was his wife, there might have been some good reason for his repudiation of her; but he never would have denied the child that was his own flesh and blood. He was too honorable not to wish to do what was right and honest, and he would certainly have made generous provision for her. No, I will not credit such a story.”

“Suppose I should show you the certificate of his marriage to this woman, also some letters which he wrote to her before their marriage?” questioned her companion, a light of evil triumph in his eyes.

“If you have such proofs, of course you will show them to me,” Allison haughtily returned. “You cannot suppose that I am going to take all that you have told me for granted, and yield my position and fortune without a struggle. Produce your evidence, if you have it; it is my right to demand it.”

“Very well; I will produce it,” said the man, with an ugly frown upon his brow; and, slipping his hand inside the breast pocket of his coat, he drew forth a large envelope and a small package of time-yellowed letters that were tied together with a faded blue ribbon.

Drawing a paper from the envelope, he unfolded and spread it out upon the table before Allison.

It was a marriage-certificate, dated more than twenty-four years previous.

It certified that on the 10th of April, of 18—, Adam Brewster had been united in marriage to Louisa M. Simpson, of New Haven, Connecticut, by the Reverend Albert Ackerman.

The document was faded and creased with time, and it had every appearance of being a genuine certificate. Allison read it carefully, then pushed it one side, and held out her hand for the letters.

As she untied the narrow ribbon that bound them, and the various missives dropped apart, a low cry of pain escaped her, for she instantly recognized her father’s handwriting upon their envelopes.

Opening several of these, she saw that they were affectionately addressed to “My Dearest,” “Sweetheart,” “Ma Belle,” etc., and signed “Ever yours,” or “Your own Ad.”

There could not be the slightest doubt that those letters had been written by Adam Brewster, although Allison did not have the heart to read any of them, and gradually the conviction was forced upon her that the story which John Hubbard had told her must be true.

What then, was to be her fate?

Mrs. Brewster’s confession of her secret adoption had, at first, cut her to the heart, for it had seemed to alienate her from the dear ones whom, all her life, she had regarded as her parents; but, in the light of this later revelation, she now felt a thrill of thankfulness in knowing that she had not been their child, since such a birth would seem to entail disgrace upon her; and, like a drowning person clutching at a straw of hope, she now clung to that assurance contained in the young mother’s note that the child whom she had been forced to desert was “well and honorably born.”

And yet she knew that Adam Brewster had loved her as he loved no other being on earth; that all his hopes had been centered in her; that he had constantly toiled and accumulated for her alone, and gloried in the fact that she would be his sole heiress.

She could not understand why, if he really had an own child, he should have repudiated her; why he had not made handsome provision for her. Possibly he had done so, unknown to any one save this woman and her daughter; and they, now becoming greedy for more, were taking this way to get possession of the heritage willed to her.

“Yes,” she sighed, at last, as she gathered up and retied the letters together, “I am afraid it is all true.”

A sinister, avaricious light sprang into the eyes of her companion as she made this admission.

“Still,” she thoughtfully resumed, “I do not see how it can very materially affect my position. I was reared as my father’s own child; all the world knows it; and the will which he made, naming me as his heiress, must stand.”

“Mrs. Brewster and her daughter will contest that will,” briefly observed John Hubbard.

“How can they? Was it not legally drawn? If it was not, then you are responsible for its invalidity,” sharply retorted Allison.

“Certainly it was legally drawn; there is no flaw in it,” was the dignified response, although the man flushed guiltily as he recalled that Sunday morning which he had spent in the bank the previous winter. “But, according to certain laws, a man has no right to make a will ignoring any of his heirs, and if, either by oversight or design, he does so, the will can be broken. Consequently, Mrs. Brewster has informed me that she should bring a suit against her late husband’s estate, and demand recognition of her position and rights.”

“And, in view of that threat, have not you, as my guardian, done anything to protect my interests?” demanded Allison, with some warmth.

“Certainly, Miss Brewster; I have done a great deal. I have staved off proceedings, for one thing, hoping that we might compromise matters, and so settle everything quietly, without a trial and a scandal. This could have been done if—if my plans had worked,” said the crafty man, with a reproachful look and sigh. “But now I think Mrs. Brewster will press her claims. She will try to break the will, asserting that you have no right to anything, while she, being the legal wife, and her child, the only legitimate heir, are justly entitled to everything.”

“Oh, will poor, dear mama’s name have to be dragged before the public? Will this claimant try to prove that mama was never legally married to papa?” exclaimed Allison, in deep distress, her face crimsoning with shame at the thought of having that lovely and sainted woman’s reputation so trailed in the dust.

“Yes, I fear she does not intend to spare her rival, unless we can hit upon some plan of settling the matter quietly,” said the crafty villain.

“Can it be quietly settled?” eagerly questioned the distressed girl.

“Possibly it might be,” the man admitted, with averted eyes.

“How?”

“Well, I suppose if you would resign everything——”

“Everything! Do you tell me that I am expected to relinquish all right and title to everything that my dear father left me?” cried Allison, the hot color mounting to her forehead in indignant protest against such wholesale robbery.

“Ahem!” said John Hubbard, moving uneasily upon his chair. “I think that will be the only way to get out of it quietly. You see, you are not really entitled to a penny, since there is no Brewster blood in your veins.”

“But do not the love and wishes of my father, as expressed in his will, count for anything?”

“From a sentimental point of view, they might count for a great deal; but there is no sentiment in law, Miss Brewster,” sneered the attorney.

“No, nor any other principle but greed!” sharply retorted Allison, a ring of keen pain in her tones.

It seemed as if she was an entirely different being from what she had been two hours previous, as if some terrible metamorphosis had taken place in her, destroying her identity and making her a stranger to even herself.

She was no longer Allison Brewster, the heiress to a vast fortune; she had no longer any right to the position she had always occupied. She did not know who she was, or—if this strange woman, who called herself Adam Brewster’s widow, demanded the uttermost farthing—how she was to live in the future, or find a home to shelter her.

“Oh, it is all a cruel mystery, and I do not know how to meet it!” the perplexed girl sighed, almost unconsciously voicing her thoughts.

“Yes, the events connected with your association with the Brewster family are mysterious, and it is doubtful if they will ever be solved,” responded her companion, a gleam of cruel satisfaction in his eyes in view of the evident suffering of his victim. “And,” he added, pressing the thorn yet more deeply into the wound, “it must seem hard to one reared as luxuriously as you have been to be reduced from affluence to abject poverty by a single blow.”

His cruelty stung her to the quick.

“It shall not be! I will not be so robbed!” she exclaimed excitedly. “I will claim that I have a right to at least some portion of the fortune which my father willed me. Surely no judge or jury would ever decree that that woman and her daughter are entitled to the whole. And I cannot quite understand your attitude in connection with their claims, Mr. Hubbard,” she added, with sudden thought. “Considering your position as my guardian, one would naturally suppose you would make a brave fight for me, rather than advocate their cause so earnestly.”

“I have already fought to the finish for you. I have spared no effort to win,” the man retorted significantly: “but, as I have already told you, you have sealed your own doom. I could have braved everything for my wife, and I would have won the victory; but when a girl tells a man that she loves a fellow he hates, and that she would rather be a beggar or a street-sweeper than marry him, her scorn has a tendency to produce a strong revulsion in his feelings. And now, my proud little beggar—for such you will be—you may go and starve, for all I care!” he concluded, with intense bitterness.

“I will not starve! I will defy you to the very end,” Allison cried spiritedly, as she again sprang to her feet and confronted her sworn foe with flashing eyes. “Oh, I am almost inclined to believe that this is some deep-laid plot to ruin me—some vile scheme of your own to drive me into a hateful marriage with you, or into poverty and obscurity as my only alternative. I have never trusted you, Mr. John Hubbard, and have wondered how papa could have put faith in you. I have long believed you to be tricky and capable of double-dealing. I have always felt that you had a hand in bringing that trouble upon Gerald. But truth and the right triumphed in his case, and you will be foiled in this. I am only a lonely girl. I know nothing about the quirks and quibbles of law; but I am inclined to doubt this story of yours regarding the woman whom you call Mrs. Brewster, in spite of the ‘proofs’ which you have shown me; and now I am going to prove to you that, even though I may have no Brewster blood in my veins, I have a spirit of which Adam Brewster need not be ashamed in the girl whom he reared as his daughter. Now, do your worst, Mr. Hubbard, and I will seek the best counsel in New York to fight against you!”

She was gloriously beautiful as she stood proudly facing her enemy. Her pose was proud and fearless, her cheeks were scarlet, and her beautiful eyes blazed with a fire which bespoke dauntless courage.

She seemed to have suddenly developed from a quiet, clinging, dependent schoolgirl into a strong, self-reliant woman, who was determined to do and dare all things to maintain her rights and preserve her heritage.

John Hubbard gazed upon her wonderingly.

He had not dreamed of arousing such a sleeping lioness; he had believed that she would be so overwhelmed by the proofs and the power which he held in his hands that she would tamely submit to the inevitable, and relinquish all right or title to the Brewster estate, whereupon he would come without an effort into possession of her fortune, which he had so long coveted.

“And whom will you choose as your attorney to contest this case, Miss Brewster?” he inquired, in a harsh, rasping voice, after recovering a little from his surprise at the stand she had taken.

“I do not know yet, and I should not tell you if I did,” she coldly responded. Then she added thoughtlessly: “Gerald will advise me. Perhaps Mr. Lyttleton——”

A vicious, sibilant oath here interrupted her as she uttered these names.

“Neither is in New York. They sailed again for Europe a week ago to-day,” John Hubbard added, in a tone of vindictive triumph.

Allison started violently, then flushed a wounded crimson. This explained why she had not heard from Gerald, she thought. Doubtless his employer had been suddenly recalled to England upon some business connected with “the complicated case” that he was conducting there.

And yet she felt, with a terrible sense of loss and pain, that Gerald might at least have found time to drop her a line, telling her of his unexpected flitting. It was very strange, and she was deeply wounded, but she did not once suspect foul play—that John Hubbard might have been tampering with her correspondence.

Such was the case, however. No letter of hers had been allowed to reach Gerald; while, at that very moment, two tender epistles from her lover, one of them telling her that he and his employer had been summoned abroad again, and giving her his London address, were tucked snugly away in the villain’s wallet.

“Very well,” she proudly returned, on recovering herself a little; “there are other talented lawyers. I shall find some one to help me.”

“But where will you get the money necessary to conduct your case, Miss Brewster?” sneeringly demanded Mr. Hubbard. “Litigation is expensive business, and, in view of your present attitude, I shall feel it my duty to cut off your allowance from this time on.”

Allison’s heart sank within her, for she saw that she was powerless in his hands; he had control of her property, and she could not compel him to give her a single dollar if he chose to withhold it.

“Well, at least I have my mother’s jewels. I can pledge them as security for my counsel’s fee,” she wearily replied.

“I beg leave to differ with you, my dear young lady,” was the sarcastic retort. “Those jewels, as you are aware, are in my safe; and since it has been proved that you are not Adam Brewster’s daughter, they will be regarded as belonging to his estate, and so retained for the true heirs, as the court shall decide.”

“Mr. Hubbard, you know that they rightly belong to me,” Allison indignantly exclaimed. “You know that papa intended them for me. He told Mr. Winchester so when he sent him to get them, and I demand them from you.”

“Excuse me, but I shall be obliged to ignore your demand,” returned the man, with a cruel smile. “Having been purchased with Mr. Brewster’s money, they henceforth properly belong to Mr. Brewster’s own daughter, and they will probably become the property of Miss Anna Brewster.”

Allison stood silently and gravely regarding him for a moment.

“Have you no heart?” she at length inquired. “Have you no principle, that you thus prove recreant to the trust my father reposed in you?”

“I was appointed guardian to Mr. Brewster’s daughter, and I fully intend to see that the lady has her rights,” John Hubbard replied.

“You know that you are not in the least carrying out the spirit of my father’s will,” said Allison solemnly. “You, as well as I, know that he would never have left his property as he did if he had supposed there was any one living who would contest his wishes. You are guilty of a great wrong.”

“Miss Brewster, I am fulfilling the ‘letter of the law’. Ah, Allison, you should never have made an enemy of me,” the villain concluded mockingly.

“Oh!” cried Allison passionately, and with a shiver of repugnance; “I believe I would rather have your enmity than your friendship, if it would free me forever from your hateful presence! From this moment I repudiate you utterly, and all your authority over me. Now, do your worst; but I warn you I will make a hot battle for you!”

John Hubbard felt a strange heart-sinking as he looked upon the beautiful girl, read the scorn in her great blue eyes, and realized how utterly despicable he was in her sight.

Then he laughed out mockingly.

“I am afraid you have undertaken more than you realize, Allison,” he said, all his ghastly teeth gleaming at her from the shadow of his inky mustache; “for let me tell you another precious little secret.” And now he bent so that his own evil eyes came just on a level with hers. “You have scornfully rejected the hand and fortune which I offered you, but Miss Anna Brewster stands ready to become Mrs. John Hubbard any day I choose to name for the wedding. So, you perceive, you will have the united interests of Hubbard and Brewster against you; and do you think I will let such a fortune slip out of my hands?”

CHAPTER XVII.

WRECK OF THE LIMITED.

As the man recklessly threw that last poisoned lance at Allison, he turned and abruptly left the room, without waiting to note what effect his words would have upon her.

She was almost paralyzed for a moment, in view of the fiendish plan which she now saw he was contemplating.

Then she nervously sank into her chair again, too weak to stand—too wretched to care much whether she lived or died.

“Oh, I believe it is all a plot of his own making!” she sighed. “I feel as if I had become entangled in some net, from which there is no hope of escape, and I am sure I do not know to whom I can look for help in this terrible emergency. Gerald has gone—how strange! I cannot understand why he should not have confided the fact to me.”

A bitter sob interrupted her at this point, for she was deeply wounded by her lover’s apparent neglect of her.

She was indeed in a trying position. She did not know what to do or to whom to turn. Her cousin, Mrs. Manning, was, as she supposed, still abroad; she could not tell her troubles to mere acquaintances, and she felt utterly alone.

“Can it be possible that I am no longer I—Allison Brewster? Am I indeed only a poor little waif who was deserted almost at my birth?” she sighed wearily, as she drew the box again toward her, and examined, once more, the little garments it contained and the golden key with the tiny diamond set in the heart of the pansy.

“What does it unlock I wonder?” she murmured thoughtfully; “or is it only an ornament? If so, it is a queer device, for it certainly is a perfect key.”

Then she reread the note supposed to have been penned by the hand of her real mother, and after that the letter written by Mrs. Brewster.

“Poor, dear mama! How she must have suffered to have had such a secret upon her mind! But both she and papa loved me as if I had been their very own,” she mused, as she touched the closely written pages to her lips.

After that she sat a long time, thinking, and trying to decide what she should do to wrest her heritage from the greedy clutch of John Hubbard and his accomplices, as she regarded them.

“I have no money, except what I have saved from my allowance, and that, I fear, would not be a tempting retaining fee for any reliable lawyer. Then I wonder if papa would want all that past experience of his life raked over, to become subjects of discussion for a scandal-loving public? If that woman’s story is true, it proves that mama was never a lawful wife, even though papa may have believed he was free when he married her. Ah! he was so fond of her; it would certainly have deeply wounded him to have the truth known, and I would not wish to do anything to bring reproach upon the memory of either of them.”

It was a trying position for the tender-hearted, conscientious girl, and she was sorely perplexed. On the one hand, if she made no effort to recover the fortune which her father had willed to her, she would be reduced to abject poverty; on the other hand, it seemed as if she would only be turning to sting the hearts that had nourished her by entailing opprobrium upon their names.

Finally she returned the clothing and letters to the box, carefully locking it, and putting the key in her purse. Then she went wearily up-stairs to her room.

The next morning Allison purposely delayed going down to breakfast until after John Hubbard had left the house for his usual trip to New York.

Thus she was alone at the table, and, while she went through the form of breaking her fast, she took up the morning paper, which her guardian had left lying beside her plate and began to glance over its columns.

Suddenly she started and uttered a joyful cry as her eye caught the following paragraph:

“We learn from a Boston correspondent that the talented artist, Mr. Charles Manning, has recently returned from his long sojourn in Rome, where he has been pursuing his chosen profession under most favorable auspices, and established himself with his charming family in Boston, where he has some important commissions—one of which is the decoration of the ceiling of the elegant banquet hall of the —— House,a magnificent hotel which has recently been erected in that city. It is probable that, later, he will return to and locate in New York, where he will be warmly welcomed back to the circle from which both he and his cultivated wife have so long been missed. They are now stopping at the Vendome.”

“Oh, could! anything have happened more opportunely?” Allison breathed, with a sob of thankfulness, as she laid down the paper to wipe the blinding tears from her eyes. “Cousin Charlie will be just the one to help me out of this dreadful trouble, and Annie will gladly take me under the friendly shelter of her wing until I can free myself from this hateful bondage to John Hubbard.”

She sat absorbed in thought for some time; then, with an air of decision, continued:

“Yes, I believe I will go at once to Boston, without saying a word to any one, and put myself under their protection. Ah, I feel like a new creature, now that I know that friends and help are near!”

Her appetite seemed to return to her, in view of this solution of her difficulties, and, after eating a hearty meal, she was almost gay as she arose from the table and ran up-stairs to prepare for her journey.

She thought it would hardly be kind to leave the house without some explanation to Mrs. Hubbard, who had invariably been very good to her; therefore, she would tell her that she was going to New York, and might not be back that day. This would give her time to get well on her way to Boston without the fear of being detained by the authority of her guardian.

She knew, of course, that considerable excitement would ensue upon the discovery of her disappearance, but this did not trouble her, for, once she was safe under Mr. Manning’s protection, she intended to utterly repudiate Mr. Hubbard’s guardianship and appeal to the court to appoint her cousin’s husband in his place.

She packed her valuables and some necessary clothing in a portmanteau, thinking that she could easily have her trunks expressed to her later.

She was careful, however, to take along with her the box which contained the proofs that she was not Adam Brewster’s child; for, although it had brought her only sorrow, it might become important to her in the future.

But a sudden thought came to her as she was about to pack it with her other things; and, reopening it, she took out the little golden key which had so excited her curiosity when she had previously examined it.

“I will always wear it, after this. I will play that it is my mascot, and perhaps it will bring me good luck,” she said to herself, with a queer little smile.

She had a pretty gold chain among her jewelry, and, attaching the key to this, she clasped it around her neck and concealed it beneath her dress.

Then, rapidly completing her packing, she rang for a servant to order the carriage around to take her to the station, after which she dressed herself in a plain dark-gray traveling-suit, and then went to tell Mrs. Hubbard that she was going to run down to New York for a day or so.

This announcement did not trouble or surprise the old lady, for Allison often made the trip alone to do shopping for herself, or keep an appointment with her dressmaker. But she did look a trifle startled when tears sprang into the eyes of the beautiful girl, as she kissed her good-by, giving her a spasmodic little embrace, and then hurriedly left the room.

“I—I wonder what is the matter?” she mused, as she wiped one of Allison’s tears from her cheek. “I’m afraid the dear child isn’t quite happy with only John and me in the house. I’ll tell him that we must ask some young folks here to make it more lively for her.”

But the kind-hearted old lady never saw the fair girl again, for two months later she “slept with her fathers.” It was a mercy, too, that she did not live to have her heart broken by learning later, as she must have learned, that her only son was an unmitigated scoundrel.

Meantime, Allison was speeding on her way to New York, where she arrived just in season to purchase her ticket, recheck her baggage, and board a fast express bound for Boston.

The day was very warm, and the girl was almost worn out with the grief and mental excitement of the last twenty-four hours, and it was with a deep sigh of relief that she settled herself in her section and knew that she would have a long rest. At New Haven she alighted and procured a light lunch, then returned to her seat, where, after the conductor had made his rounds, she lay back and soon fell into a heavy sleep. She did not waken once until the train stopped at Worcester, and then only long enough to show her ticket again, a profound slumber that was almost lethargy once more overpowering her senses.

It was a blessed sleep for her—a merciful unconsciousness; for thus she escaped the realization, even for a moment, of the fearful fate toward which she was fast hastening. The train rushed on at lightning speed—it was the limited express—forests, rivers, and towns, like swift-flitting visions of dreamland appearing, then vanishing in rapid succession, until a misplaced switch sent it swerving off upon another track, when it went dashing and crashing into a heavy, slow-going freight with a terrible shock, demolishing the engine, throwing two cars from the track, and sending the one in which Allison was a passenger rolling down an embankment, and making a complete wreck of it. It was full of people, many of them bound for summer-resorts along the New England coast or among the mountains.

Many were severely injured, several killed outright, five or six taken from the wreck for dead; and Allison was among these—the ghastly wound on top of her lovely golden head telling but too plainly how she had come to such a fate.

She was drawn out from under the débris of the shattered car by an elderly gentleman, who had occupied the section opposite the one she had taken, and who had been irresistibly attracted by the fair, delicate girl who seemed to be traveling alone, and was so overcome by excessive weariness.

For hours he had watched her, strangely fascinated by her beauty and the exquisite picture she made, with her refined face outlined against, and her golden hair contrasting so effectively with, the dark-blue cushion of her seat. His first thought was of her when, after the first terrible shock of the accident, he recovered from his own half-stunned condition to find that, except for some severe bruises and one or two cuts, he was unharmed—a fact which seemed almost a miracle, in view of the demolished condition of that portion of the car.

He drew her from under the seat—which had fallen over and partially protected her—as carefully and tenderly as he was able, and he felt sure, as he observed the peaceful expression on the colorless face, that that cruel blow on her head had come so suddenly that she had not even been aroused from her slumber.

“She was too young and beautiful to die like this,” the man muttered, with something very like a sob, as he gently deposited his burden upon a plot of grass, straightened the graceful figure, and clasped the slender hands upon the pulseless breast, covering the lovely face with a spotless handkerchief of his own.

Then he remembered that he had seen a hand-bag on the seat with her, and he went back to the car to search for it. He finally found it under the forward end of the wreck, which had been driven backward several rods by the fatal shock that had demolished it before it left the track.

The receptacle was crushed, and the articles it had contained were scattered about.

He gathered up what he could find—a purse, a little package of dainty handkerchiefs wrapped in tissue-paper, a golden vinaigrette, and a comb of tortoise-shell.

He then went back and sat down beside his charge, and opened the purse, in the hope of finding some name or address by which he could identify her.

He found a roll of bills amounting to quite a generous sum, some pieces of silver, a key, a gold glove-buttoner, and a baggage-check, but there was no card, not even a scrap of paper, to give him the slightest clue to the unfortunate girl’s identity.

“The check may throw some light upon the subject, however,” he told himself; and, with this thought in his mind, he made his way into the baggage-car, where, he soon found Allison’s portmanteau, but which, alas! had no name upon it.

When the débris was removed from the track, the uninjured cars were transferred to their proper pathway, where they were attached to another ingoing train, while the injured were made as comfortable as circumstances would permit, the dead being placed in a baggage-car.

All save Allison, the old gentleman who had constituted himself the guardian of her lifeless form refusing to allow any one else to touch her.

He carried her in his arms to a stateroom of one of the parlor-cars, where he laid her upon a berth and then sat down beside her to keep guard over her until they should arrive in the city, when he knew he would be obliged to yield the body up to the proper authorities, to be retained for identification.

As we already know, Allison had informed no one of her intention of going to Boston to put herself under the protection of the Mannings.

She had simply told Mrs. Hubbard that she was going to New York, and might not return that day.

As she had sometimes remained overnight with one of her up-town friends, John Hubbard did not experience any uneasiness when she failed to make her appearance that evening.

He knew that she was bitterly angry with him, and it was not surprising that she should wish to get away from his presence for a time. Possibly she had even gone to consult some lawyer with reference to her affairs, but he only smiled viciously at this thought, for he believed that his plans had been so cleverly devised that there was not the ghost of a chance of their being overthrown.

But when the second day passed and his ward was still absent, he began to be considerably exercised over her mysterious flitting, for a mystery always angered him.

He did not see a Boston paper that day, and the New York papers only briefly described the accident that had occurred to the limited express, without giving any names of the victims.

But on the third morning after the strange disappearance of Allison he was terribly shocked, after reading a full account of the accident, to find the name of “Miss Brewster” among the list of those who had been killed.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A CRUSHING TROUBLE.

John Hubbard sat like one stunned, upon realizing the full import of what he had read of Allison’s probable fate, and at once he seemed to comprehend her object in going to Boston.

He also had heard of the Mannings’ return from Rome, and, knowing how fond of her cousins Allison had always been, he had not a doubt that she had fled to them for protection and assistance.

But the shock which he had at first experienced was almost immediately followed by a thrill of exultation.

“That settles everything,” he muttered; “I shall now have no fear of her contesting Mrs. Adam Brewster’s claims, on the ground that a will was made in her favor, and thus, perhaps, securing a division of the property. Everything will now naturally go to the new claimants, and the Brewster fortune is mine. I will marry the girl, Anna, thus making their interests identical with mine, take her abroad for a year or two, to polish her off, then I can come back to take my place with the other millionaires of the city. There need be no more scheming or plodding for you, John; your future is an assured success; henceforth, you can rest upon your oars and have a jolly good time,” he concluded, with a sigh of infinite content.

His once boasted affection for Allison—what had become of it? He had been momentarily shocked, but he did not appear to experience the slightest grief in view of her untimely end. “The high-spirited little minx” had dared to defy him, thus arousing his anger and malice, and since his greed for gold now bade fair to be fully gratified, she was apparently no more to him than a worm that had been crushed in his path.

Still, there were certain duties devolving upon him, certain observances to which he must conform, and he had no intention of being criticized for neglect of them. Consequently, he started directly for Boston, for the purpose of identifying his ward and properly attending to everything that might be necessary.

But when he went to the morgue, and made inquiries, he was appalled upon being told that the body of the young lady had already been identified and removed.

“It cannot be possible,” he exclaimed. “Are you sure it was Miss Brewster’s body which was taken away?”

“Certainly,” the official replied; “a Russia-leather card-case, containing cards bearing the name of Miss Brewster, had been found upon the person of the young lady, thus proving her to be the person the gentleman was inquiring for.”

Mr. Hubbard thought possibly the Mannings might have identified Allison and cared for her, and, with this idea in mind, he sought Mr. Manning at the Vendome.

But Mr. Manning was horrified upon being interviewed upon the subject. He had read an account of the accident, and had seen the name of Brewster among the list of killed, but had not once thought of Allison in connection with the event, supposing the person to belong to some other family of the same name.

Mr. Hubbard found it somewhat embarrassing to explain how his ward happened to be traveling to Boston alone; but, thinking that the truth might as well come out first as last, he related something of the circumstances connected with the appearance of Mrs. Adam Brewster and her daughter; said that Allison had become very angry upon learning the truth, and thus, he supposed, she had taken it into her head to come to her cousins in Boston.

A diligent search was instituted, and many inquiries made for the body of the missing girl; but all to no purpose—some one had taken care of it—every victim had been identified by friends and taken away.

The Mannings were overwhelmed with grief, and Mr. Hubbard was finally forced to return to New York, also very much disturbed by the mystery which seemed to shroud the fate of his late ward.

Two months passed, during which the plans of the wily schemer—the chief obstacles having been removed—progressed to his entire satisfaction.

His application to the courts for the recognition of Mrs. Adam Brewster and Miss Anna Brewster, as the only lawful heirs of the late banker, had been granted, and their claims established, notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Charles Manning had come forward to contest them, on behalf of his wife, who, he asserted, was the niece of Mr. Brewster, and his only living relative. He utterly repudiated the story regarding that gentleman’s early marriage and subsequent separation from the woman in question.

But his claim was overruled, in view of the preponderance of evidence upon the other side. The old love-letters, the marriage-certificate, the certified copy of the record of the transaction, together with quite a sensational story regarding the early married life of the couple, their occasional disputes, which finally ended in a violent quarrel and separation, all having been very cleverly arranged and sustained, were considered proof positive that the widow and her daughter were the only legal heirs, and the case was very shortly decided in their favor.

Of course, it created a great deal of sensation and gossip, but, like all other affairs of a similar nature, it had its “nine days’” run, and was then forgotten in the excitement pertaining to some newer scandal.

A few days after the decision of the court was rendered, Miss Anna Brewster became Mrs. John Hubbard. Mrs. Adam Brewster was handsomely pensioned off, and luxuriously settled in an up-town apartment, where she was to live at her ease, while the newly wedded couple were traveling in Europe, and the “Brewster Case” was supposed to be finally settled.

Of all these happenings, however, Gerald, as yet, knew nothing, for, shortly after Allison’s departure for Newport, Mr. Lyttleton had been again suddenly summoned abroad, by his sister, to discuss some new feature which had unexpectedly arisen in connection with the lawsuit which he was conducting for her.

Gerald and Allison had agreed to continue their correspondence as heretofore, but he did not hear from her once before he left. This, although a disappointment to him, did not trouble him, especially as he attributed it to the confusion and many cares incident upon opening the villa and getting settled for the summer.

He had written to her once or twice, and, upon learning of his plans, wrote again, telling her the date of his sailing, giving, also, his London address, and begging her to write him immediately.

But John Hubbard had already intercepted all letters written by the lovers, and this shared the same fate as the others; and thus Allison did not know of Gerald’s departure until her guardian informed her of the fact.

Thus as weeks passed, after his arrival in London, and Gerald received no word from his betrothed, he began to grow very unhappy and anxious about her.

He sent letter after letter to her, only to have them fall into the hands of that arch-plotter, who did not hesitate to open and read them, then chuckle exultantly over the success of his scheme and the misery of his hated rival.

Finally, becoming almost distracted over this mysterious silence, our hero began to suspect that his correspondence was intercepted, and he realized that he must find some other way of communicating with Allison.

Accordingly, he wrote to one of the clerks in the New York office, telling him something of his trouble, and asking him to find some means of conveying the enclosed letter to Miss Brewster, and secure a reply to it, if possible.

But before he could get a response to this appeal, Mr. Lyttleton was obliged to make a trip to Berlin, to obtain some important data, and here they were detained two or three weeks.

Thus Gerald’s wild grief may be imagined when, upon his return to London, he found awaiting him a letter containing the announcement of Allison’s tragic death, and which, together with accompanying New York papers, gave a full account of the sad event, and of the subsequent litigation in connection with the Brewster estate, the result of which was the transfer of everything into the hands of the acknowledged widow and daughter of the late banker.

The latest paper announcing the marriage of John Hubbard to “the beautiful Miss Anna Brewster,” had not been forwarded; thus Gerald could not know that his old enemy was now virtually the possessor of the great fortune that had been willed to Allison.

Gerald was so prostrated by the terrible shock consequent upon this blighting news that he lay ill for nearly a fortnight at his hotel, and narrowly escaped having brain fever. When he was finally able to resume his business, he looked like the ghost of his former self; he seemed to be bereft of all courage and desire for life, and it was only by the persistent exercise of all the will-power he possessed that he was enabled to fulfill his duty to his employer.

Mr. Lyttleton, to whom he freely confided his trouble, sympathized deeply with him, and tried to induce him to take a rest—to go to Paris, or even to Rome, for a change. But Gerald only shuddered at this proposal.

“Oh, I do not want to rest. I do not want a chance to think. I shall lose my mind if I am left to myself!” he responded in a tone of despair that keenly smote the kind heart of his friend. “Give me work—piles of work,” he added nervously; “I do not care how hard you crowd me, if it will serve to occupy my thoughts and keep me from dwelling upon that railway horror and upon that knave who, I firmly believe, drove my darling to her death.”

So Mr. Lyttleton made work for him, realizing his need of employment, but the white, drawn face of the bereaved lover haunted him continually, until he began to feel as if he also had been personally afflicted.

Had it not been for the deep and absorbing interest which, previous to this, Gerald had begun to take in the wonderful case upon which his employer was engaged, it is doubtful if he would have been able to bear up during these first dark days of his crushing trouble.

Mr. Lyttleton’s sister had, when very young, married an Englishman, and under very peculiar circumstances.

The home of the lawyer, during his youth, had been in a small town in Illinois; and, educational advantages being at that time very meager in their vicinity, Mabel Lyttleton had been sent East to pursue her studies, at a noted seminary in one of the suburbs of Boston.

While there she had become acquainted with Charles Bromley, an Englishman, who was making a tour of this country, and just at that time visiting some relatives who resided in the vicinity of the above-mentioned seminary.

The young man proceeded at once, upon their introduction, to fall violently in love with pretty Miss Lyttleton. His affection was most fervently reciprocated, and ere long both grew to feel that life apart from the other would be unendurable.

Mr. Bromley intended to remain in the United States some six months longer, but, just on the eve of the holiday recess of the seminary, he was suddenly recalled to England by the peremptory order of his father.

He was somewhat puzzled by this command, but, while discussing it with his betrothed, and arranging to return to her by the time her school-days were over, it suddenly struck him that it might have some connection with an old project of his father to consummate a union with a distant cousin, whose rent-roll amounted to some thousands of pounds per annum.

“I will fix things,” said this young man to himself; “I will marry my little ‘prairie flower’ here and now, and then all the fathers in creation cannot compel me to marry anybody else.”

Whereupon, he broached the subject to Miss Mabel, who—though she shrank from a secret marriage, as any pure-minded, conscientious girl would do—found that her affection for her handsome lover was stronger than her sense of filial duty, and she reluctantly yielded to young Bromley’s persuasions.

They were very quietly married on Christmas eve, and young Bromley sailed for Europe the first day of January, but promised faithfully that he would return in season to accompany his wife to her home, upon her graduation from school, the following summer, when he would bear all the responsibility of their union, and boldly claim her of her father; her mother was not living.

Letters passed between them every week, and they continued to be very happy in the knowledge of the secret tie that united them. Young Bromley found that ill health had prompted his father to summon him home, for the cares pertaining to Sir Charles Bromley’s estate had become too heavy for him, and he needed help.

The marriage with the distant cousin was broached, for the baronet earnestly wished to see his son settled in life, while, too, he had an eye to the welding of two fortunes, which would result from the union; but when he discovered his son’s opposition to such an alliance, he did not urge it, for he was no tyrant, and believed a man had the right to choose his own wife.

The old gentleman became so much better as the summer drew on apace, he consented to allow the young man to complete his interrupted tour in America, and the little wife so patiently awaiting him was finally made supremely happy by having the day fixed for his sailing.

But, alas! just the week previous to her graduation, there came a letter stating that Sir Charles had been prostrated by a stroke of paralysis, and the young husband could not leave until his father was declared out of danger.

This was a terrible blow, and at first it seemed as if she could not bear it; but her friend and confidante, Helen Atwood, wrote to Mr. Lyttleton, begging that Mabel might be allowed to remain with her during the remainder of the summer, as her parents were going abroad for three or four months, and she would be very lonely during their absence. This petition was granted, greatly to the delight of the two friends, who retired to Mr. Atwood’s country home, a few miles out of the city, to rusticate and enjoy each other’s companionship, and most earnestly hoping that Mr. Bromley would put in an appearance before the visit should come to an end.

The latter part of August there came a letter from Bromley Court, announcing the death of the baronet, after a second attack of paralysis; the next week the waiting wife received another letter, saying that, at last, her husband was free to come to her, and would sail five days later, and would be with her in a little more than a week afterward. But the steamer on which he sailed was the ill-fated Catalonia, which was wrecked the sixth day out, its few survivors being picked up the following morning by another vessel. But, alas! among the names of the passengers who were lost was that of Sir Charles Bromley.

The news of this terrible tragedy, coming, as it did, just at the moment when her cup of joy seemed full, was more than the waiting wife could bear. As her horrified glance fell upon the name of her idolized husband in the list of the dead, a shriek of agony burst from her lips, and she sank to the floor in strong convulsions, the fatal paper clutched in her rigid hands.

For several days she lay at the point of death, but mercifully unconscious of her own suffering, and her apparently blighted life. Then she slowly began to rally, coming back to life and consciousness, but so broken-hearted that it was painful to be in her presence.

But, three weeks afterward, her mourning was turned into joy by the sudden appearance of her husband, who, after various thrilling experiences, had been rescued, with two or three others, by a sailing-vessel which had arrived in port only that morning, when he immediately hastened to his wife.

CHAPTER XIX.

GERALD MEETS HUBBARD.

The fair invalid’s convalescence was very rapid after that, and as soon as she was able to travel, the happy couple started for the home of the Lyttletons, in Illinois, where, upon their arrival, the family were astounded to learn that Mabel had been a wife for nearly a year, and would soon leave them again, to reside permanently in England.

The brothers, who worshiped their only sister—the baby and pet of the household—at once accorded their new brother-in-law a hearty welcome, and rather enjoyed the romance that had attended Mabel’s marriage; but their father, a reserved, austere man, was inclined to be very harsh with his daughter for having played them such a trick.

It was not, however, in the power of any one to long resist the frank, manly young husband, who boldly asserted that he might have been wrong in enticing his wife into a secret marriage, but that “he would do it over again if it were necessary, rather than run the risk of losing her.”

Such a spirit rather staggered the old gentleman, but, on the whole, he secretly admired the handsome sinner; while the fact of being father-in-law to an English Baronet, to have one’s daughter addressed as Lady Bromley, proved to be a salve to his wounded dignity and love of authority; therefore, the erring little lady’s indiscretion was finally condoned, and all was well.

After a few weeks spent in her home, she departed for England with her husband, where, with the exception of occasional visits to this country, she had resided ever since, and led a very happy life.

Her husband had died the year previous to Gerald’s connection with Mr. Lyttleton, and the “complicated case,” which this gentleman was conducting for his sister, was the settlement of the Bromley estate, a distant relative having laid claim to it, upon the ground of being nearest of kin, since Sir Charles had left no heir.

The property had been largely augmented by the fortune of the distant cousin, whom the elder baronet had wished his son to marry. The lady had always cherished a secret affection for the young man, and her love proving stronger and more enduring than her resentment against him for choosing a younger and fairer bride, she had bequeathed everything to him upon her death, which occurred some ten years after the present Lady Bromley had come to Bromley Court, and of whom also she became very fond.

Thus the Bromley fortune was a magnificent inheritance, and Richard Lyttleton was doing his utmost to save it for his sister. Nevertheless, a court of chancery was an almost hopeless labyrinth in which to become involved, and it might be years before the case would be settled.

Lady Bromley was a fair, sweet-faced woman of about thirty-eight or forty years, and, from the moment of their meeting, Gerald had been strongly attracted to her, and she to him.

Therefore, upon learning of the terrible shock and sorrow that had recently come to him, her sympathies were instantly enlisted in his behalf, and she went to him often during his illness, to be sure he had proper care and to cheer him as well as she could.

When he was able to leave his room, she conceived a plan by which she hoped to be of real benefit to him. She made him come to lunch with her one day, and, after she had induced him to speak freely of his bereavement and his love for the beautiful girl whom he had hoped to marry, she confided to him something of her own story, as related above.

“Come and stay here with me for a while,” she pleaded during this exchange of confidence; “I am almost alone in this great, silent house”—glancing around the spacious, luxurious room with a sigh—“and I should be glad to have some young life about me. Richard, you know, is always so busy he can never spare me much of his time, and my evenings are especially lonely. I want you to tell me more of this lovely Allison Brewster; it will do you good to talk of her, even though the story is so sad. Ah! I shall never forget the dreadful day when I read that tragic account in the newspaper and believed my husband to be lying in the depths of the sea!”

So, with her sweet sympathy and her plea for companionship, she won her point, and almost every day after that, when his work was done, Gerald might have been seen driving about or visiting some place of interest with her. There was a gentle graciousness about her—a sort of elder-sisterly manner toward him, that made her very charming, and he soon grew to feel as if he must always have known her, and he became devoted to her.

This pleased Mr. Lyttleton, who was intensely relieved to see that the face of his confidential clerk was beginning to lose its tense look of pain, and that, when he came to his work in the morning, he no longer appeared jaded and haggard, as if he had spent the whole night in grieving.

Thus time passed, and it was nearly the first of October when, one day, Mr. Lyttleton announced that, for the fourth time, the long-contested case had been put off until another term; and accordingly they would return to New York at the end of another week.

“Then, Richard, I am going with you,” suddenly exclaimed Lady Bromley, as she shot a wistful look at Gerald, who had grown very pale at the thought of going home, where the loss of Allison would seem like a fresh grief to him. “I will leave all business matters in the hands of Mr. Cram, the steward, and make a little visit to my native land, where I will stay until this dreadful lawsuit is called again. I am almost ready to give up the battle. I am tired out with it, and begin to think that the whole Bromley fortune is not worth the wear and tear of all this worry.”

“Nonsense, Mabel!” impatiently returned her brother, a dogged expression settling over his face; “that is just what the other side is working for—they want to tire you out, and I’m not going to give up the fight, by any means. I know that Sir Charles wanted you to be sole mistress of everything. I have often heard him say that you were to have all, in case anything happened to him; and how he ever allowed himself to be so negligent, and leave no will, I cannot understand. I sometimes think he may have made one, and it has slipped away somewhere.”

“I’m afraid not, Richard; I have hunted the house over and over, as you know, and I am sure no such document exists,” said her ladyship, with a sigh. “However, I am going to run away from the whole business, and try to forget it for a while. I’m going home with you and Gerald,” she concluded, smiling.

“Come, and welcome, dear,” said her brother cordially.

The very next morning, as Gerald was walking down the Strand, intent upon a matter of business for Mr. Lyttleton, he was suddenly confronted by a man the sight of whom caused him to grow deathly pale, and his heart to throb suffocatingly, from various emotions.

This man was none other than John Hubbard.

The expert, upon recognizing Gerald, lifted his upper lip, and showed his gleaming teeth in a vicious grin. Then he attempted to pass on without any other sign of recognition. But the young man resolutely placed himself in his path.

“Mr. Hubbard,” he remarked, with cold constraint, “you must excuse me for delaying you, but I want to ask you a few questions. I wish to inquire if any light has been thrown upon Miss Brewster’s fate during the last few weeks?”

“Not that I am aware of,” the man stiffly replied.

“It was all true, then—the story of that railway accident, and her—her burial by some parties unknown?” questioned Gerald, with quivering lips.

“I suppose it was, since every possible effort was made to find her, but without avail,” the man returned, with a frown of annoyance, for his own pillow was, by no means, free from thorns in view of his agency in driving Allison from her home and to her death.

Often, during the night, he would start from his sleep, the perspiration standing in cold beads all over him, his heart beating wildly with fear, as if some demon had seemed to shout in his ear the word “murderer!” and warn him that the wrongs which he had perpetrated against her would yet be avenged.

“It was a mysterious affair,” he continued, after a moment of hesitation, and impelled almost against his will to make the explanation. “I went to Boston as soon as I learned of the accident, and saw her name in the paper, and made diligent inquiry for the—the body.”

Gerald gave utterance to a shuddering exclamation.

“It seems strange to me,” he said, “that, since her cards were found with her—at least, the paper so stated—any one should claim her unless there happened to be another Miss Brewster upon the train.”

“It was strange.”

“What can you tell me about this woman who claims to be Mrs. Adam Brewster?” Gerald asked, and abruptly leaving the other subject. “Where did she come from? Where has she been hiding all these years?”

“She has lived in various places in New York City during the last few years,” responded the man, flushing hotly, for Gerald was now probing a sensitive spot; but he seemed helpless to get away from his inquiries. “She’s rather a fine-looking woman, though not particularly well educated, or what one would have expected a man like Mr. Brewster to choose for a wife. Her daughter, however, has had far better advantages. She made her claims known to me not so very long after her husband’s death; but I tried to stave them off, for Allison’s sake, hoping that the matter could be quietly settled. But after her—the accident, there was nothing to be done but let the case come to trial.”

“It seems to me the most improbable story in the world,” said Gerald reflectively. “Mrs. Manning should have inherited that property.”

“She would have, but for the incontestable proofs which Mrs. Brewster presented; even had Allison lived, she would have won the suit,” returned John Hubbard, searching his companion’s pale, thin face with his cruel eyes. He was secretly gloating over every stab that he was giving him.

“It is a mystery to me that she never put in an appearance while Mr. Brewster was living,” the young man mused. “I suppose, however, there must have been something questionable in her life or claim, and she did not dare to. And you acted as her counsel?”

“I did.”

“That seems to me the strangest proceeding of all.”

“Well, and what are you going to do about it?” was the sneering demand; and for a moment the two men stood absolutely motionless, gazing into each other’s eyes—one with a look of dogged defiance, the other with a stern, searching, accusing expression.

“I cannot understand your doing such a thing as that, Mr. Hubbard,” Gerald remarked, his tone plainly indicating that he believed there had been foul play.

“Probably not,” was the curt, ironic retort, “and I do not know that it is necessary that you should understand it. I was the administrator of the Brewster estate, and when it was proved that there wasn’t a drop of Brewster blood in Allison’s veins, there is nothing so very remarkable about the fact that I conducted the transfer of the property—especially after the death of Allison, who might, perhaps, have contested the woman’s claim upon the ground that a will had been made in her favor, though that would easily have been broken.”

“What were these proofs that Allison was not Mr. Brewster’s own daughter?”

“Oh, some clothing and some letters that were found in a box——”

“What box—where was the box found?” queried Gerald, with breathless interest, his mind instantly reverting to one of those which he had taken from the secret vault at the banker’s command.

“I see you suspect the truth,” said John Hubbard, with a malicious grin. “Yes, it was one of those we caught you lugging off that Sunday.”

Gerald flushed at this fling, but he was too much absorbed in his own thoughts, just then, to pay much heed to it.

“Ah! I understand now!” he said; “that was why Mr. Brewster made me promise that I would never speak of my errand to any person. He wanted to get that box into his hands without having any one know of its existence—he meant to destroy the contents, so that Allison should never learn the truth.”

“It certainly looks like it; you reason very well, young man. But justice sometimes triumphs, as in this case,” sneered his companion.

“Justice!” repeated Gerald, with infinite scorn; “that is yet to be proved. But did no one question the genuineness of this woman’s proofs?”

“Oh, yes, there was some talk in that direction—there naturally would be,” returned the attorney, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. “But it didn’t amount to anything; the evidence was so conclusive it was promptly admitted by the court.”

“Where did this alleged marriage take place?” demanded Gerald.

“In New Haven, Connecticut.”

“And were the records pertaining to this event thoroughly examined?”

“Certainly; everything was conducted with all due regard to the requirements of law, Mr. Winchester. Mr. Manning made a very brave showing in the interests of his wife—he is no half-way worker; while, as for myself, I seldom undertake anything which I am not pretty sure of carrying to a successful end,” Mr. Hubbard concluded, with significant emphasis.

“All the same, I do not believe one word of that woman’s story,” stoutly affirmed our hero, a frown of perplexity gathering upon his brow. “Mr. Brewster certainly never appeared like a man who had any such skeleton in his closet. I believe him to have been a strictly honorable man in every act of his life, and——”

“Yes, I believe there was a sort of mutual admiration society between you,” sarcastically interposed John Hubbard.

“And,” the young man continued, without appearing to heed the interruption, “I am sure that if he had known that he had an own child living he never would have allowed it to live in such poverty as the papers have represented was the lot of this woman and her daughter; he would, at least, have given them a comfortable support.”

“That is your idea of the matter, young man; but stranger things than that are happening every day,” dryly observed his companion. “It is rather difficult to judge just what kind of an existence some of our aristocrats do lead; indeed, many of them have been known to have been engaged in love-intrigues that would not bear the light of day.”

Gerald’s hand clenched involuntarily at this indirect slur upon his former high-minded employer.

“Mr. Brewster was never such a man,” he said sternly; “his life was clean, through and through. Where are these women now?”

“Ahem!” said Mr. Hubbard, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. “Mrs. Adam Brewster is at present in New York City; her daughter, who is now Mrs. John Hubbard, is here, in London, and we are stopping at the Langham.”

CHAPTER XX.

THE SECRET OF THE FOOT-REST.

For a moment Gerald was stricken dumb with astonishment by the unexpected announcement that John Hubbard had married the heiress to Adam Brewster’s fortune, and all that it implied.

Then there arose with him a terrible indignation in view of what he believed to be a foul wrong—the successful consummation of the long and cunning plotting of a skilful knave.

“Do I understand that you have married this so-called Miss Anna Brewster?” he finally demanded in a strangely calm voice.

“Exactly; that is just what I have done,” replied the man, showing his teeth. “Miss Anna was a handsome girl, of whom almost any man might feel proud—well educated and—ah—amiable. She is a few years older than Allison. She was naturally grateful for the interest which I manifested in her affairs; we found, upon a closer acquaintance, that we were mutually congenial, and she consented to honor me with her hand.”

“And her fortune, also—it goes without saying, I suppose?” scornfully interposed Gerald, who was fast losing command of himself, as he realized what consummate villainy lay behind this revelation.

“Certainly; Miss Brewster being the only child of her father, of course inherits the bulk of his property, although the widow has her third; while the lady having become my wife, it naturally devolves upon me to manage her interests,” the man responded, a ghastly, malicious grin expressing his enjoyment of the situation.

“You are a scoundrel, sir!” said Gerald, between his compressed teeth. “I firmly believe that for years you have been scheming for this very thing. I know that you wanted to marry Allison when you believed her to be rich, and when you could not carry your point in that direction, and get her money, you doubtless plotted to bring the same result about in some other way.”

“Well, you certainly did not succeed in getting any of Adam Brewster’s gold!—you were rather balked in your efforts to win the pretty heiress—eh!” sneered the wretch, but flushing guiltily beneath the young man’s fiery, accusing glance.

“I would scorn to marry any woman for her money,” said Gerald proudly.

“You did care, for the girl, though—you became very sweet on her, if I remember rightly.”

“That is a matter which does not concern you in the least, sir.”

“Think so?” was the satirical rejoinder. “Possibly it does not—now, but it did concern me very much at one time. Have you forgotten the very significant little object-lesson which I gave you over three years ago? I told you, when I crushed the bud which she had given to you, that everything which stood in my path should share the same fate.”

“I remember,” said Gerald sternly, but with bloodless lips, as he thought how that act had symbolized Allison’s fate as she lay crushed and bleeding beneath that fatal wreck; “but,” he continued in the same tone, “let me now, in turn, prophesy for you—your day of triumph will be short, for if you have been guilty of fraud—and I firmly believe you have—if you have been false to the trust which Mr. Brewster reposed in you, you will ere long find yourself doomed. I am studying law, Mr. Hubbard, under one of the shrewdest attorneys of our day, and, when I complete my studies, if not before, I shall make it my business to investigate this singular case, which has so recently excited the gossip of New York society, and given a million or more of money into your greedy hands; and, if such a thing be possible, justice shall be meted out to you.”

“Bah! you brag like a second David, aching to slay another Goliath; but such valiant deeds are not achieved in this nineteenth century, you insufferable boaster!” snarled John Hubbard, as he turned resolutely aside to pursue his way.

“Hold!” commanded Gerald authoritatively; “I have yet one more word for you. Following out your simile, let me say that my sling is a dauntless will, and a pebble may yet be found which will do its work and hurl you from the heights, upon which you feel so secure, into an ignominious abyss from which you will never arise.”

Upon returning to Lady Bromley’s elegant residence in Portland Square, Gerald informed Mr. Lyttleton of his encounter with John Hubbard. The lawyer was deeply interested in the rehearsal of the conversation which had taken place between the two, and when the young man concluded, he remarked, with no little warmth and conviction:

“There certainly has been foul play in connection with the Brewster property. I always felt that the man was a rascal, but he is a very clever one, and you may be very sure that he has so covered his tracks and burned his bridges behind him that, unless some unforeseen evidence comes to light, it would be very difficult to depose him from his position.”

“I cannot credit that story regarding the woman who calls herself Mrs. Brewster,” said Gerald reflectively. “I would give a good deal to have our old friend, Plum, examine that certificate of hers, and those old letters, which she claims were written by Mr. Brewster before their marriage.”

“I fear you will never be gratified, my boy,” said his friend; “the case has been settled, and no one has any authority to rake it over again, unless, as I said before, some new evidence should be forthcoming, or some barefaced fraud detected which would implicate the victors in the recent trial. If we had been in New York at the time the case was in court, I should have followed it with a great deal of interest.”

Gerald said no more about the matter at that time. All the same, he made a secret resolve that immediately upon his return he would go to New Haven and examine the records of marriage-certificates, to assure himself that matters were exactly as they had been represented.

He could not—he would not believe that there had ever been an ignoble secret in his former employer’s life. He almost felt it a personal injury, and resented it as such, that his fair name should have been so smirched before the public. He felt, too, that Mrs. Manning, as the nearest of kin, was being deeply wronged by having Mr. Brewster’s large fortune so diverted from its proper channel.

The week following found him, with Lady Bromley and Mr. Lyttleton, on the broad Atlantic, and fast approaching the shores of their native land.

Upon their arrival in New York her ladyship took a suite of rooms in a hotel, saying that she wanted a place of her own in the city, where she could go and come, making visits here and there, as she liked. She, however, persuaded Gerald to take a room in the same house with her.

“I shall want an escort,” she smilingly told him, “for I mean to go about a good deal, and it will be so convenient to have you near—that is, if you will not feel that I am imposing upon you.”

Gerald assured her that it would give him great pleasure to attend her wherever she might feel inclined to go; and he was thankful to her for looking to him for companionship, for it seemed to him that it would be almost more than he could bear to be left to himself among the familiar scenes which reminded him so forcibly of Allison.

He did not have a suspicion that Lady Bromley had made all these arrangements wholly on his account; that his sorrowful face and heavy eyes so haunted her that she resolved to give him just as little time as possible to dwell upon his trouble.

Thus it came to pass that they breakfasted and dined together, Gerald getting his luncheon down-town, near the office, while in the evening they almost invariably went out to some concert, lecture, or place of amusement, or had friends come to them.

In this way they grew to be more and more fond of each other, until the sweet, though lonely woman gradually came to regard the high-minded fellow with almost as much affection as if he had been her son; while he never failed to experience a feeling of restfulness and content in her presence.

One Sunday afternoon Gerald and his friend were sitting in Lady Bromley’s charming little parlor. The young man had been reading aloud from a new book that was just out, until, as the daylight began to wane, Gerald had observed that her ladyship had seemed somewhat restless, and several times had glanced rather wistfully around the room. At last, realizing that he was watching her, she broke forth with an apologetic little laugh:

“Gerald, I really must have a hassock. I have acquired the habit of using a foot-rest, and I shall not feel at home until I can get into my natural position. I shall go out to-morrow morning and buy three or four; then I can have one in every room.”

“Why did you not speak of it before?” Gerald inquired. “I would have supplied your needs with pleasure. Possibly I might find one in the house to-night for you. I will go and ask the clerk. Ah!”—with sudden thought—“I have the very thing for you; at least, it will answer your purpose until you are better equipped.”

With that he started up, and, going to his own room, took from his trunk the old-fashioned cricket that had belonged to his aunt.

With a smile of amusement over the antiquated appearance of the thing, he returned with it to his friend.

“It is as ‘old as the hills,’ and rather a shabby affair for a modern boudoir,” he remarked as he placed it conveniently for Lady Bromley, and then he told her the history of it, while she listened with curious interest.

“But for Aunt Honor’s wish that I would not part with it, because it was an heirloom which she prized, I would have gotten rid of it long ago,” he remarked, in conclusion. “It is a veritable ‘elephant’ upon my hands, for I usually carry it in my trunk wherever I go.”

“That must indeed be rather inconvenient for you,” Lady Bromley observed, as she regarded the quaint old foot-rest critically. “It is queer how tenacious of heirlooms some people are,” she added reflectively; “I know of some attics and storerooms that are full of just such things, and they are of no use to any one; but, having been purchased and prized by some remote ancestor, they are regarded as sacred, and it would be thought desecration to either dispose of or destroy them. But, Gerald, this cricket is made of solid mahogany! If it was repolished, the brass claw feet nicely cleaned and laquered, and the top handsomely upholstered, it would really be a very pretty thing.”

Gerald laughed.

“That involves a good deal of reconstruction, and I am afraid I do not care enough for it to take all that trouble, especially as I never use anything of the kind,” he smilingly responded, and then they drifted to some other subject. A few days later, when he returned at his usual hour for dinner, his friend lifted a doubtful face to him.

“Gerald,” she said plaintively. “I have ruined your cricket! Look!” she continued, removing her feet from it, when he saw that the bright, intricate patchwork, which had been the work of Miss Winchester’s patient fingers, was all discolored.

“I was trying, this afternoon, to remove some spots of iron-rust from a couple of nice handkerchiefs, and I did not like to trust the work to any one else,” her ladyship continued. “Suddenly the bottle of acid slipped from my hands, the contents were spilled upon the cricket, and the color all taken out of the cover, as you see.”

“Never mind; pray do not give it another thought,” replied the young man indifferently, “that patchwork was years and years old—it has served its day and generation.”

“May I fix it over for you?” questioned his companion. “I will have it done nicely, and then it will make a pretty ornament for my room as long as we remain here.”

“Certainly; do with it as you like,” heartily replied Gerald. “I would like to give it to you, since it seems to interest you so much, but I’m afraid Aunt Honor’s ghost would haunt me for being so unmindful of her wishes.”

“Oh, I do not want you to give it to me; but I would like to make it a more presentable piece of furniture,” said her ladyship, and there the matter rested.

But the next day, when she was alone, she looked it over carefully, to consider just how she would repair it. Taking her scissors, she cut away a portion of the patchwork covering, and then laughed out amusedly as another, faded and worn, was revealed to her.

“There may be half a dozen, for aught I know,” she mused, “and I have a curiosity to see what taste and texture represent the previous generations of my Gerald’s family.”

Clipping busily away, she cut the whole outer cover off, when a piece of worsted work came to light.

“Ah!” said Lady Bromley. “Miss Winchester’s ancestor, next removed, was evidently fond of crewel embroidery! It is a very pretty design—ferns and honeysuckles—and there are an endless number of stitches in it; if it could only speak, what an interesting history it might give me of the girl or woman who wrought it!

“But this is strange!” she added, a moment after. “It has been partially cut away on three sides, and”—lifting it—“so has the next cover, which is a piece of ordinary tapestry, and the next, also, which is of ordinary horsehair, and probably the original covering.

“Generation the fourth, and last,” she observed in a tone of satisfaction, as she removed the ragged hair-cloth and threw it to one side, for her occupation was becoming rather distasteful, on account of the dust which arose from her efforts.

This left only a layer of cotton to be disposed of, and, as she gathered it up and laid it upon the heap of rags beside her, a low, startled exclamation burst from her lips upon observing that there was a lid in the top of the cricket, and that a leather loop had been tacked upon one side of it, to enable it to be readily lifted from its place.

“Well! I am afraid I have stumbled upon some secret with which I have no business!” rather nervously murmured her ladyship, as she curiously eyed the ancient foot-rest. “What can it mean? Possibly this heirloom, which he has so affected to despise, may prove, after all, to be very precious to ‘my Gerald.’”

She had almost unconsciously grown into the habit of calling him “my Gerald,” her constantly increasing affection for him giving her a certain sense of possession.

“Perhaps we shall discover title-deeds to a great fortune—as we read about in novels—in this dusty, musty little sepulcher which, in all probability, has not been opened for many years,” she went on, with a light, mocking laugh at her romantic suspicion. “And yet”—with a slight start—“every cover except the last had been partially cut away, so, of course, Miss Winchester must have known the secret—possibly she also may have concealed something in here for him to find, and that is why she made him promise never to part with it.”

With her thumb and finger she laid hold of the leather loop and lifted the cover, just enough to ascertain whether the thing was empty or not.

The next instant she dropped it again, a quick, startled cry breaking from her.

The receptacle was packed full of papers!

With a very grave face Lady Bromley arose from the floor, carefully placed the cricket in one corner of the room, and dropped an afghan over it.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE WINCHESTER HEIRLOOM.

“Gerald,” said her ladyship that same evening, upon coming up from their dinner, “how far back do you know your family history?”

Gerald turned to his friend with some surprise at this question, and then his fine face clouded.

“Not very far,” he gravely returned. “The most that I know is that—a long time ago—some of my ancestors came to this country from England. I have heard Aunt Honor speak of her great-grandfather, on her mother’s side, being a Scotch Presbyterian minister. Her grand-father was a blacksmith, her father a physician, and——”

“And your father—who and what was he, Gerald?” eagerly questioned Lady Bromley, as he paused suddenly.

Again the young man flashed a look of surprise at his companion, and flushed slightly.

“Pardon me if I seem unduly curious,” said her ladyship, laying her hand fondly upon his shoulder as she caught the look. “I am, perhaps, overstepping the bounds of etiquette in catechizing you thus, but I have a reason for it which I will explain presently. You have already told me that you do not remember either your father or mother.”

“No,” replied Gerald, “my father, who must have been considerably younger than Aunt Honor, went to sea and never came back, and that is about all that I know regarding him; for auntie never seemed to like to talk about him. My mother died of quick consumption when I was an infant only a few months old, and was buried in Ashton, a small town in Rhode Island, where, later, I buried auntie. This is about all that I know concerning my personal history, for my aunt was always so busy trying to make a living for us, she never seemed willing to stop to answer my boyish questions. So I finally grew tired of having her say bruskly, though not unkindly, ‘Oh, go away, child; I’m busy now, and can’t be bothered,’ and thus I gradually came to look upon my birth and early life as a sort of vague dream, and to realize that my chief concern was to improve my time, and get what education I could to fit myself for the future that lay before me. And yet, since I have grown older, I have sometimes thought that Aunt Honor intentionally evaded me and kept back from me facts regarding my parentage. But she was always very good to me—she denied herself a great deal to keep me at school. I really believe that she worked beyond her strength, and that was what caused her to drop away so suddenly.”

“Have you no relics—no keepsakes, that belonged to your mother? Have you no record of her marriage, or her wedding-ring?” asked Lady Bromley.

“No; I was so intent upon my boyish pursuits I never thought to ask for anything of the kind; indeed, I doubt if I even knew that such things were requisite accompaniments to marriage while Aunt Honor lived; you know, I was only fourteen years of age when she died,” Gerald responded, with a sigh.

“Yes, I suppose it is not strange that you did not think of such things at that age,” said Lady Bromley, adding, as she smiled kindly into his rather troubled face: “And now I am going to tell you why I have been so exceedingly inquisitive—perhaps you may have deemed me rudely so. I made a discovery this afternoon, Gerald, which I am impressed will be of great interest to you, even if it does not throw any light upon your own personal history. It was to prepare you somewhat for this that I have questioned you. I took a notion into my head that I would have that ancient cricket of yours made over into something respectable, and, upon removing various coverings, I found that the top of the thing is a kind of box, with a cover which fits snugly into it.”

“That is curious!” Gerald observed, with sudden interest.

“It is; and what is still more so, is the fact that the receptacle is packed with papers.”

“Why, that is very remarkable! What kind of papers?”

“That I cannot tell you, my dear boy,” replied her ladyship, flushing slightly, “for, of course, I did not presume to touch them. I am sure, however that your aunt, Miss Winchester, must have known of this secret, and it is possible that she also may have added something to its contents, for I found that every covering, underneath the outer one, had been partially detached to admit of the lid being lifted.”

“Ah, this explains why she was so insistent that I should never part with the cricket!” Gerald exclaimed. “But why all the secrecy? Why did she not tell me that the thing contained important documents?” he added wonderingly.

“Possibly she may have intended to do so, later on, when you had arrived at years of discretion—she may have regarded you, up to the time of her death, as too young to be entrusted with important information,” replied Lady Bromley. “But come,” she continued, rising and speaking in a playful tone, “you must examine this mysterious inheritance for yourself.”

She went to the corner where she had placed the cricket, removed the coverings she had thrown over it, and pointed to the ancient heirloom, which, in its demolished condition, now appeared more disreputable than ever.

But, somehow, Gerald shrank from the thing. There was an oppressive weight upon his heart—a sense of dread lest, upon investigating the mystery, he should learn some secret which would make his life unendurable.

“Come, come, you indifferent boy; have you no curiosity?” lightly queried her ladyship, who plainly read his thoughts upon his expressive face. “I frankly confess to an element of ‘Mother Eve’ in my nature; but I have some letters to write, so I am going to my chamber while you examine the contents of your treasure-chest.”

“I cannot bear to touch it,” he replied, regarding the inoffensive chest with a moody brow; “I believe I am afraid of it.”

“Fie! do not be superstitious,” laughingly reproved his companion. “Who knows but that you may find yourself the descendant of some ‘lord of high degree’ over the water. In that case, I may have the felicity of your continued friendship and presence in the country of my adoption; that is, if my own case comes to a favorable issue, and I ever get back to England.”

Still Gerald did not move.

He was superstitious in this instance; and if he could have followed the promptings of his own inclinations, he would far rather have burned this mysterious heirloom, without learning the nature of its contents, than run the risk of discovering some story of the past which would make his cheek burn with shame to rehearse to this lovely woman, who had become so much to him during the last year.

Still assuming a lightness of manner, although her own heart was strangely oppressed by the magnetism of his fear, Lady Bromley herself lifted the foot-rest, and bore it to the table, where she deposited it.

Then, after placing a chair before it, she again went to Gerald’s side, slipping her hand within his arm, and forcibly compelling him to cross the room and be seated.

“Now, my dear boy,” she said, laying her hand caressingly on his head, and speaking with exceeding tenderness, “let not your heart be troubled, no matter what the contents of this strange treasure-chest reveals to you; all is wisely ordered by a good Father. Nothing can harm you individually; Miss Winchester’s judicious training and your own innate nobility of character have made you a man whose friendship any man or woman might be proud to win, and from whose real worth no mistake or shadow of a previous generation could detract one iota.”

Gerald lifted his face to the beautiful one bending above him, and there was a suspicious moisture in his eyes. He gently took the hand from his head, and, bringing it around to his lips, left a reverent caress upon it.

“Lady Bromley, how kind you are to me! How much you have become to me during the short year of our acquaintance! I owe you more than I can express—especially for your almost divine sympathy during my recent trouble. I believe, but for you, I could not have lived and kept my reason, after learning of Allison’s terrible fate, and now——”

Her ladyship laid her fingers upon his tremulous lips. She saw that he was on the verge of a wild outburst of grief, in view of the crushing sorrow of the past, and the dread of what might be in store for him.

“Hush!” she said softly, “do not look back. We all have our troubles and losses. I have had mine, and no living soul, save myself, knows how hard to bear some of them have been”—this with visible emotion; “and if I should allow myself to dwell on them I should be one of the most wretched women living. Now I am going to run away,” she continued more brightly, “but when I come back, let me find all these somber clouds dispersed.”

She swept her hand lightly and caressingly across his brow as she ceased speaking, then went quickly from the room. Gerald sat moodily, thinking for a long time after she disappeared. His arms were tightly folded across his breast, his head was bent, and his whole attitude plainly indicated the great depression of mind which held him enthralled.

Mentally he went over the ground of his whole life, recalling many incidents of his childhood which, at the time, had seemed of no importance whatever, but which now, viewed in the light of later events—of his aunt’s persistent evasion of his questions and of Lady Bromley’s discovery of that day—appeared to be strongly significant of some vital secret regarding his origin.

Surely, Miss Winchester would never have made him promise so sacredly never to part with her cricket if she had not known that it contained something which might some day become of importance to him.

The partial cutting away of the various coverings also betrayed that, at least, some individual, for four generations back, had been cognizant of an important secret connected with the quaint heirloom, and had probably added something to it. He recalled how very vague his Aunt Honor had always been to him in reference to his parents—particularly so regarding his father, who “went to sea before he was born and never came back”—that was her invariable reply to all questions which he asked, and he was usually switched off upon some other subject when he became too persistent.

He had a picture of his mother, taken when she was a fair, sweet girl of seventeen or eighteen years, and all his life he had loved to look at the lovely face, with its earnest, thoughtful expression, and he often wondered if the sound of her voice would have thrilled him as did those beautiful eyes into which he so loved to gaze.

He never remembered to have seen any relatives—he had had but few playmates. He and his aunt had lived very quietly by themselves in their country home, until they had come to New York, and become a part of its bustling, hustling life.

Miss Winchester had been kind and fond of him, in her way, and he had loved her more because he had no one else to love, than because of the bond of kinship which existed between them.

He smiled now, a trifle bitterly, as he thought of this, and remembered how few people there had ever been in the world who had felt any real interest in him.

Toward Mr. Brewster he had been strongly attracted from the first hour spent in his office, when he had gone to him as a common messenger-boy. He had been his ideal of a true and honorable gentleman, and his regard for him had continued to increase until it had grown into something that might have been called boyish worship.

Then Allison had come into his life, like a star of hope, only to fall again suddenly from his firmament, and leave him in almost rayless darkness.

And yet he knew he should not say that, for there was Mr. Lyttleton, whose kindness had been unvarying, while Lady Bromley was, next to Allison, the dearest friend he had ever known.

His had been rather a barren existence thus far, taking it all in all; what would the future bring him? he wondered, with a weary sigh.

With a look of sudden determination, he straightened himself, put forth his hand, and grasped the Winchester heirloom.

The next moment he swung back the lid in the top, and found himself gazing upon the mysterious documents which, for so long, had been concealed there.

Those on top were yellowed and creased with age. There was a chronological tree of the Winchesters, dating back for ten generations; but although Gerald examined it carefully, he could find no trace of any “lord of high degree,” or anything which threw the slightest light upon his own birth or parentage.

Then there were records of marriages, births, and deaths, some baptismal-certificates, and, among these latter, that of Miss Honor Winchester herself. Also one of Martha Winchester which was pinned to a marriage-certificate, showing her to have married, some fifty years previous, a certain Arthur Harris.

With these there was the record of the birth of a daughter, who had been named Miriam, and who evidently had been the only child of this couple.

“H’m!” said Gerald thoughtfully, “I never heard Miss Honor speak of having had a sister named Martha, and—and my mother’s name was Miriam. This rather mixes things for me, and strikes me as being very queer.”

These papers were the only ones which, as yet, contained anything of special interest to him, and he wondered why they had been placed so near the bottom of the receptacle in the cricket.

He laid them apart from the others, and then drew forth a bulky envelope, which, with a sudden start and thrill, he discovered was addressed to himself, in the familiar handwriting of Miss Honor Winchester.

Now every nerve in his body seemed alive with a sense of painful expectation.

He believed that a crisis in his life had come—that he was about to pass the Rubicon which was perhaps to make or mar his whole future.

The envelope was sealed, but he broke it open impatiently—an intolerance of all delay in learning his fate taking possession of him—and drew out its contents, though with a hand that was far from steady.

There were a few letters bound together with a rubber band, and the writing on their envelopes had a strangely familiar look to him.

Next, there were several closely written sheets which, he saw at once, had been written by his aunt, and doubtless to him, although he could not stop to read them then. He was too anxious to ascertain the contents of those two other papers which lay underneath them.

With a strange heart-sinking, he unfolded the uppermost one, and as he glanced quickly over it, a look of blank astonishment overspread his face.

Laying it down, he opened the only remaining document. There was a minute of utter silence, during which he scarcely seemed to breathe, as he hastily perused its contents.

Then, with a hoarse cry bursting from his colorless lips, he sprang from his chair, the paper clutched in his rigid hands, while the ancient heirloom of the Winchesters, which he had overturned with a sweep of his elbow, went crashing noisily to the floor.

An instant after that hoarse, startled cry rang through the room—after that foot-rest went crashing to the floor, the door of Lady Bromley’s chamber flew open, there was the sound of silken garments trailing swiftly over the carpet, then a jeweled hand was laid upon Gerald’s arm, and the anxious eyes of the beautiful woman searched, with a frightened look, the rigid countenance of our hero.

“Gerald! What is it?” she whispered. “What has excited you so? Tell me!”

“Good heavens! It cannot be true! I can never believe it!” the young man muttered, a far-away look in his eyes, his face still set and white as marble.

“What is it that cannot be true? Have you made some wonderful discovery?” questioned Lady Bromley, her hand still clinging to his arm, her voice full of gentle persuasiveness.

“Yes.”

“Tell me!”

“I am almost afraid to breathe it aloud.”

“No, no! Gerald, surely not to me—your friend under all circumstances; one who will never fail you,” the lovely woman pleaded. “Is it as you surmised, some secret connected with your origin?”

“Yes, and it is wonderful! Incredible!”

“Tell me!” again commanded his friend.

The excited fellow drew in a deep breath that shook his stalwart frame from head to foot.

He straightened himself to his full height, throwing back his head with an air of freedom and conscious pride, while an expression of great joy illumined his eyes.

Then he looked down and smiled into the face of the fair woman beside him.

“You will scarcely believe me,” he said, “but I am Adam Brewster’s son!”

Lady Bromley heard Gerald’s statement with amazement, although she had felt that the papers might have a serious bearing on the life of her young friend. Together they examined the documents so long hidden in the old foot-stool, and when they had finished with the last piece of evidence, so singularly produced, it was evident to both that the mystery of Gerald’s birth had been cleared away, and that, as the lawful son of the banker, he was the rightful heir to the millions for which John Hubbard had seemingly successfully plotted.

How Gerald’s claim to the banker’s fortune was established to the complete undoing of the scheming lawyer, and how the sunshine of love and happiness once more entered into his life, will be found in the sequel to this story, which is published under the title, “A Heritage of Love,” and bound in handsome cloth binding, uniform with this volume.

THE END.

Good Fiction Worth Reading.

A series of romances containing several of the old favorites in the field of historical fiction, replete with powerful romances of love and diplomacy that excel in thrilling and absorbing interest.

DARNLEY. A Romance of the times of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey. By G. P. R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis, Price, $1.00.

In point of publication, “Darnley” is that work by Mr. James which follows “Richelieu,” and, if rumor can be credited, it was owing to the advice and insistence of our own Washington Irving that we are indebted primarily for the story, the young author questioning whether he could properly paint the difference in the characters of the two great cardinals. And it is not surprising that James should have hesitated; he had been eminently successful in giving to the world the portrait of Richelieu as a man, and by attempting a similar task with Wolsey as the theme, was much like tempting fortune. Irving insisted that “Darnley” came naturally in sequence, and this opinion being supported by Sir Walter Scott, the author set about the work.

As a historical romance “Darnley” is a book that can be taken up pleasurably again and again, for there is about it that subtle charm which those who are strangers to the works of G. P. R. James have claimed was only to be imparted by Dumas.

If there was nothing more about the work to attract especial attention, the account of the meeting of the kings on the historic “field of the cloth of gold” would entitle the story to the most favorable consideration of every reader.

There is really but little pure romance in this story, for the author has taken care to imagine love passages only between those whom history has credited with having entertained the tender passion one for another, and he succeeds in making such lovers as all the world must love.

CAPTAIN BRAND, OF THE SCHOONER CENTIPEDE. By Lieut. Henry A. Wise, U. S. N. (Harry Gringo). Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

The re-publication of this story will please those lovers of sea yarns who delight in so much of the salty flavor of the ocean as can come through the medium of a printed page, for never has a story of the sea and those “who go down in ships” been written by one more familiar with the scenes depicted.

The one book of this gifted author which is best remembered, and which will be read with pleasure for many years to come, is “Captain Brand,” who, as the author states on his title page, was a “pirate of eminence in the West Indies.” As a sea story pure and simple, “Captain Brand” has never been excelled, and as a story of piratical life, told without the usual embellishments of blood and thunder, it has no equal.

NICK OF THE WOODS. A story of the Early Settlers of Kentucky. By Robert Montgomery Bird. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

This most popular novel and thrilling story of early frontier life in Kentucky was originally published in the year 1837. The novel, long out of print, had in its day a phenomenal sale, for its realistic presentation of Indian and frontier life in the early days of settlement in the South, narrated in the tale with all the art of a practiced writer. A very charming love romance runs through the story. This new and tasteful edition of “Nick of the Woods” will be certain to make many new admirers for this enchanting story from Dr. Bird’s clever and versatile pen.

WINDSOR CASTLE. A Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII., Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00.

“Windsor Castle” is the story of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne Boleyn. “Bluff King Hal,” although a well-loved monarch, was none too good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and unwarrantable acts, none was more discreditable than his divorce from Catharine, and his marriage to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The King’s love was as brief as it was vehement. Jane Seymour, waiting maid on the Queen, attracted him, and Anne Boleyn was forced to the block to make room for her successor. This romance is one of extreme interest to all readers.

HORSESHOE ROBINSON. A tale of the Tory Ascendency in South Carolina in 1780. By John P. Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

Among the old favorites in the field of what is known as historical fiction, there are none which appeal to a larger number of Americans than Horseshoe Robinson, and this because it is the only story which depicts with fidelity to the facts the heroic efforts of the colonists in South Carolina to defend their homes against the brutal oppression of the British under such leaders as Cornwallis and Tarleton.

The reader is charmed with the story of love which forms the thread of the tale, and then impressed with the wealth of detail concerning those times. The picture of the manifold sufferings of the people, is never overdrawn, but painted faithfully and honestly by one who spared neither time nor labor in his efforts to present in this charming love story all that price in blood and tears which the Carolinians paid as their share in the winning of the republic.

Take it all in all, “Horseshoe Robinson” is a work which should be found on every book-shelf, not only because it is a most entertaining story, but because of the wealth of valuable information concerning the colonists which it contains. That it has been brought out once more, well illustrated, is something which will give pleasure to thousands who have long desired an opportunity to read the story again, and to the many who have tried vainly in these latter days to procure a copy that they might read it for the first time.

THE PEARL OF ORR’S ISLAND. A story of the Coast of Maine. By Harriet Beecher Stowe. Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

Written prior to 1862, the “Pearl of Orr’s Island” is ever new; a book filled with delicate fancies, such as seemingly array themselves anew each time one reads them. One sees the “sea like an unbroken mirror all around the pine-girt, lonely shores of Orr’s Island,” and straightway comes “the heavy, hollow moan of the surf on the beach, like the wild angry howl of some savage animal.”

Who can read of the beginning of that sweet life, named Mara, which came into this world under the very shadow of the Death angel’s wings, without having an intense desire to know how the premature bud blossomed? Again and again one lingers over the descriptions of the character of that baby boy Moses, who came through the tempest, amid the angry billows, pillowed on his dead mother’s breast.

There is no more faithful portrayal of New England life than that which Mrs. Stowe gives in “The Pearl of Orr’s Island.”

GUY FAWKES. A Romance of the Gunpowder Treason. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00.

The “Gunpowder Plot” was a modest attempt to blow up Parliament, the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England, was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme of extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold spirits concluded to overthrow the government. Finally the plotters were arrested, and the King put to torture Guy Fawkes and the other prisoners with royal vigor. A very intense love story runs through the entire romance.

THE SPIRIT OF THE BORDER. A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley. By Zane Grey. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

A book rather out of the ordinary is this “Spirit of the Border.” The main thread of the story has to do with the work of the Moravian missionaries in the Ohio Valley. Incidentally the reader is given details of the frontier life of those hardy pioneers who broke the wilderness for the planting of this great nation. Chief among these, as a matter of course, is Lewis Wetzel, one of the most peculiar, and at the same time the most admirable of all the brave men who spent their lives battling with the savage foe, that others might dwell in comparative security.

Details of the establishment and destruction of the Moravian “Village of Peace” are given at some length, and with minute description. The efforts to Christianize the Indians are described as they never have been before, and the author has depicted the characters of the leaders of the several Indian tribes with great care, which of itself will be of interest to the student.

By no means least among the charms of the story are the vivid word-pictures of the thrilling adventures, and the intense paintings of the beauties of nature, as seen in the almost unbroken forests.

It is the spirit of the frontier which is described, and one can by it, perhaps, the better understand why men, and women, too, willingly braved every privation and danger that the westward progress of the star of empire might be the more certain and rapid. A love story, simple and tender, runs through the book.

RICHELIEU. A tale of France in the reign of King Louis XIII. By G. P. R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

In 1829 Mr. James published his first romance, “Richelieu,” and was recognized at once as one of the masters of the craft.

In this book he laid the story during those later days of the great cardinal’s life, when his power was beginning to wane, but while it was yet sufficiently strong to permit now and then of volcanic outbursts which overwhelmed foes and carried friends to the topmost wave of prosperity. One of the most striking portions of the story is that of Cinq Mar’s conspiracy; the method of conducting criminal cases, and the political trickery resorted to by royal favorites, affording a better insight into the state-craft of that day than can be had even by an exhaustive study of history. It is a powerful romance of love and diplomacy, and in point of thrilling and absorbing interest has never been excelled.

A COLONIAL FREE-LANCE. A story of American Colonial Times. By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

A book that appeals to Americans as a vivid picture of Revolutionary scenes. The story is a strong one, a thrilling one. It causes the true American to flush with excitement, to devour chapter after chapter, until the eyes smart, and it fairly smokes with patriotism. The love story is a singularly charming idyl.

THE TOWER OF LONDON. A Historical Romance of the Times of Lady Jane Grey and Mary Tudor. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00.

This romance of the “Tower of London” depicts the Tower as palace, prison and fortress, with many historical associations. The era is the middle of the sixteenth century.

The story is divided into two parts, one dealing with Lady Jane Grey, and the other with Mary Tudor as Queen, introducing other notable characters of the era. Throughout the story holds the interest of the reader in the midst of intrigue and conspiracy, extending considerably over a half a century.

IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING. A Romance of the American Revolution. By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

Mr. Hotchkiss has etched in burning words a story of Yankee bravery, and true love that thrills from beginning to end, with the spirit of the Revolution. The heart beats quickly, and we feel ourselves taking a part in the exciting scenes described. His whole story is so absorbing that you will sit up far into the night to finish it. As a love romance it is charming.

GARTHOWEN. A story of a Welsh Homestead. By Allen Raine. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

“This is a little idyl of humble life and enduring love, laid bare before us, very real and pure, which in its telling shows us some strong points of Welsh character—the pride, the hasty temper, the quick dying out of wrath.... We call this a well-written story, interesting alike through its romance and its glimpses into another life than ours. A delightful and clever picture of Welsh village life. The result is excellent.”—Detroit Free Press.

MIFANWY. The story of a Welsh Singer. By Allan Raine. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

“This is a love story, simple, tender and pretty as one would care to read. The action throughout is brisk and pleasing; the characters, it is apparent at once, are as true to life as though the author had known them all personally. Simple in all its situations, the story is worked up in that touching and quaint strain which never grows wearisome, no matter how often the lights and shadows of love are introduced. It rings true, and does not tax the imagination.”—Boston Herald.

ROB OF THE BOWL. A Story of the Early Days of Maryland. By John P. Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. Four page illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

This story is an authentic exposition of the manners and customs during Lord Baltimore’s rule. The greater portion of the action takes place in St. Mary’s—the original capital of the State.

The quaint character of Rob, the loss of whose legs was supplied by a wooden bowl strapped to his thighs, his misfortunes and mother wit, far outshine those fair to look upon. Pirates and smugglers did Rob consort with for gain, and it was to him that Blanche Werden owed her life and her happiness, as the author has told us in such an enchanting manner.

As a series of pictures of early colonial life in Maryland, “Rob of the Bowl” has no equal. The story is full of splendid action, with a charming love story, and a plot that never loosens the grip of its interest to its last page.

TICONDEROGA. A Story of Early Frontier Life in the Mohawk Valley. By G. P. R. James. Cloth, 12mo. Four page illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

The setting of the story is decidedly more picturesque than any ever evolved by Cooper. The story is located on the frontier of New York State. The principal characters in the story include an English gentleman, his beautiful daughter, Lord Howe, and certain Indian sachems belonging to the Five Nations, and the story ends with the Battle of Ticonderoga.

The character of Captain Brooks, who voluntarily decides to sacrifice his own life in order to save the son of the Englishman, is not among the least of the attractions of this story, which holds the attention of the reader even to the last page.

Interwoven with the plot is the Indian “blood” law, which demands a life for a life, whether it be that of the murderer or one of his race. A more charming story of mingled love and adventure has never been written than “Ticonderoga”.

MARY DERWENT. A tale of the Wyoming Valley in 1778. By Mrs. Ann S. Stephens. Cloth, 12mo. Four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

The scene of this fascinating story of early frontier life is laid in the Valley of Wyoming. Aside from Mary Derwent, who is of course the heroine, the story deals with Queen Esther’s son, Giengwatah, the Butlers of notorious memory, and the adventures of the Colonists with the Indians.

Though much is made of the Massacre of Wyoming, a great portion of the tale describes the love making between Mary Derwent’s sister, Walter Butler, and one of the defenders of Forty Fort.

This historical novel stands out bright and pleasing, because of the mystery and notoriety of several of the actors, the tender love scenes, descriptions of the different localities, and the struggles of the settlers. It holds the attention of the reader even to the last page.

THE LAST TRAIL. A story of early days in the Ohio Valley. By Zane Grey. Cloth, 12mo. Four page illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

“The Last Trail” is a story of the border. The scene is laid at Fort Henry, where Col. Ebenezer Zane with his family have built up a village despite the attacks of savages and renegades. The Colonel’s brother and Wetzel, known as Deathwind by the Indians, are the bordermen who devote their lives to the welfare of the white people. A splendid love story runs through the book.

That Helen Sheppard, the heroine, should fall in love with such a brave, skilful scout as Jonathan Zane seems only reasonable after his years of association and defense of the people of the settlement from savages and renegades.

If one has a liking for stories of the trail, where the white man matches brains against savage cunning, for tales of ambush and constant striving for the mastery, “The Last Trail” will be greatly to his liking.

THE KNIGHTS OF THE HORSESHOE. A traditionary tale of the Cocked Hat Gentry in the Old Dominion. By Dr. Wm. A. Caruthers. Cloth, 12mo. Four page illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

Many will hail with delight the re-publication of this rare and justly famous story of early American colonial life and old-time Virginian hospitality.

Much that is charmingly interesting will be found in this tale that so faithfully depicts early American colonial life, and also here is found all the details of the founding of the Tramontane Order, around which has ever been such a delicious flavor of romance.

Early customs, much love making, plantation life, politics, intrigues, and finally that wonderful march across the mountains which resulted in the discovery and conquest of the fair Valley of Virginia. A rare book filled with a delicious flavor of romance.

BY BERWEN BANKS. A Romance of Welsh Life. By Allen Raine. Cloth, 12mo. Four page illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.

It is a tender and beautiful romance of the idyllic. A charming picture of life in a Welsh seaside village. It is something of a prose-poem, true, tender and graceful.

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers, A. L. BURT COMPANY, 52-58 Duane St., New York.

Transcriber’s Notes:

A table of contents was created to enable eBook navigation.

Obvious punctuation omissions and instances of extraneous punctuation have been repaired. Inconsistent hyphenation was retained as printed. Period and common alternate spellings were also retained, but the following apparent printing errors were corrected:

On page 4, changed “enomiums” to “encomiums” (winning for herself encomiums from both surgeons and physicians).

On page 20, changed “smal” to “small” (She had a small annuity).

On page 20, changed “founteen” to “fourteen” (fourteen years of age).

On page 22, changed “b” to “be” (to be a noble, whole-hearted, high-principled fellow).

On page 25, changed “everythink” to “everything” (at whose touch everything seemed to turn into gold).

On page 29, changed “quielty” to “quietly” (then he said, as quietly as if).

On page 38, changed “talkin” to “talking” (she stood talking with John).

On page 40, changed “Gearld” to “Gerald” (But before Gerald could reply).

On page 62, changed “bdden” to “bidden” (when he had bidden her adieu).

On page 83, extra “an” removed (an exclamation of disappointment).

On page 85, changed “chirish” to “cherish” (to tenderly cherish her).

On page 89, changed “pupit” to “pupil” (quite an apt pupil).

On page 91, changed “mary” to “marry” (I never could marry you).

On page 94, added a missing “he” (and he at once procured a lawyer).

On page 96, changed “stank” to “stand” (on taking the stand).

On page 102, changed “CAPTER” to “CHAPTER” (CHAPTER IX.).

On page 139, changed “shinning” to “shining” (tossing her shining head).

On page 152, changed “tne” to “tone” (in an apologetic tone).

On page 154, changed “myelf” to “myself” (once in a while myself).

On page 156, changed “wil” to “will” (It will be such a blessed relief).

On page 161, changed “as” to “was” (his voice was hardly audible).

On page 164, changed “mary” to “marry” (will you marry me).

On page 165, changed “shal” to “shall” (you shall be gratified).

On page 165, changed “wil” to “will” (To answer your last question will be to reply to all).

On page 169, changed “secert” to “secret” (every vestige of this secret).

On page 195, changed “visons” to “visions” (swift-flitting visions of dreamland appearing).

On page 209, changed “paniful” to “painful” (it was painful to be in her presence).

On page 233, changed “realy” to “really” (I really believe).

On page 251, changed “Coth” to “Cloth” (Cloth, 12mo.).

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Table of Contents

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Golden Key; Or, A Heart's Silent Worship, by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

THE GOLDEN KEY

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE.

A RESPONSIVE HEART.

CHAPTER I.

SIXTEEN YEARS AFTER.

CHAPTER II.

“WHATEVER STANDS IN MY PATH!”

CHAPTER III.

LOVE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.

CHAPTER IV.

“I WOULD STAKE MY FORTUNE.”

CHAPTER V.

THE BANK ON SUNDAY MORNING.

CHAPTER VI.

GERALD SUFFERS AN INDIGNITY.

CHAPTER VII.

MR. BREWSTER’S WILL.

CHAPTER VIII.

EVIDENCE BY MR. PLUM.

CHAPTER IX.

AN IMPORTANT WITNESS.

CHAPTER X.

A THRILLING ADVENTURE.

CHAPTER XI.

“I DID NOT MEAN TO BETRAY MYSELF.”

CHAPTER XII.

ALLISON AND HER GUARDIAN.

CHAPTER XIII.

“BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS.”

CHAPTER XIV.

A TERRIBLE REVELATION.

CHAPTER XV.

AN APPALLING SECRET.

CHAPTER XVI.

DO YOUR WORST.

CHAPTER XVII.

WRECK OF THE LIMITED.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A CRUSHING TROUBLE.

CHAPTER XIX.

GERALD MEETS HUBBARD.

CHAPTER XX.

THE SECRET OF THE FOOT-REST.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE WINCHESTER HEIRLOOM.

Good Fiction Worth Reading.

Transcriber’s Notes:

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