February 27. I sat for hours in my room, that night, trying to find some solution of the mystery and groping for a future course of action. I thought of a visit to my mother, on the chance that she would give me the key to the puzzle, but could not bring myself to it. Rejecting that idea, I decided to seek out Mr. Blodgett, who, being your friend, might know the reason for what you had done.

Finding on inquiry, the next morning, that Mr. Blodgett was a member of one of the chief banking firms of New York, I went to his office. The ante-room was well filled with people anxious to see the great banker, and the door-boy refused me access to him without giving my name and business. Knowing that "Donald Maitland" would mean nothing to Mr. Blodgett, and might even fail to secure me an audience, I wrote on a slip of paper, "A seeker of knowledge from the Altai Mountains." Nor was I wrong, for the boy, on his return, gave me immediate entrance, and another moment brought me face to face with my once-disliked countryman.

His hand was extended to greet me, but as he looked at my face his arm dropped in surprise. "Your name, please?" he demanded, with a business-like clip to his voice, at the same time picking up and glancing quickly at three or four cards and slips of paper that were on the corner of his desk.

"I am the attorney for ancient peoples," I announced, smiling, "come to thank the New World for its kindness to a broken-legged man."

Instantly Mr. Blodgett smiled too, and again extended his hand. "Glad to see you," he said. "Sit down." Then looking at me keenly, he added, "You've done a lot of bleaching or scrubbing since we met."

"In the interval my face has been hidden from the sun-god of my fathers."

"Ah!" Then his Americanism cropped out by a question: "Are you European or Asiatic?—for you are too dark to be the one, and too white to be the other."

"My parents were American, and I was born in New York."

"The deuce you were! Then why were you masquerading in Arab dress and with a brown face in Tangier, and why did you say you came from some mountains in Asia?"

"I was for the time an Arab, and I was last from the Altai Mountains," I explained, and smilingly added, "Is my explanation satisfactory?"

"Well, I suppose you spoke by the book," he replied. "Wherever you were born, I'm glad to see—Hold on!" he cried, interrupting his own speech. "Why did you call yourself Dr. Rudolph Hartzmann, of Leipzig, if you were an American?"

"I did not," I denied, startled by his question, for my identity with the pseudonym was known only to my professors and publishers.

"You weren't living in Tangier under the name of Hartzmann?" he inquired.

"No."

"Then how came it that when my servant was sent to leave some fruit and flowers for you and inquire your name, he was told that you were Dr. Rudolph Hartzmann, of Leipzig?"

"Are you serious?" I questioned, as much puzzled as he for the moment.

"Never more so. I remember our astonishment to think that any European should have so dark a skin and live in the native quarter."

"Mr. Blodgett," I explained, "I did not know till this moment that a pen name I have used to sign my writings had been given you, but it was a joke of my father's to register me under it, and my only theory is that he had given some one in the hotel that name, and, by mischance, your servant was misinformed."

He was too good a business man to look as skeptical as he probably felt, and merely asked, "What is your real name, then?"

"Donald Maitland, son of William Maitland."

His eyes gave a startled wink and he screwed his lips into position for a whistle, but checking the inclination, he merely turned his revolving-chair so that he looked out of a window. He sat thus for a moment, and then, facing me, he questioned, with a sudden curtness of voice and manner, "What is your business with me?"

"I have taken the liberty of calling on the supposition that you are a friend of Miss Walton."

"I am."

"Miss Walton was once my father's ward, yet last night she refused to see me. Can you tell me why?"

"The reason is rather obvious," he asserted crisply.

"Will you tell me what it is?"

He looked at me from under his gray eyebrows. "Is that all you want of me?" he demanded.

"Yes."

"Well, then, Miss Walton refused to see you because she despises you."

I felt my cheeks burn, but I gripped the arm of my chair and waited till I could speak coolly; then I asked, "For what?"

"You are ignorant of the fact that your father embezzled a part of Miss Walton's fortune, and that you and he have since lived upon it?" he exclaimed, with no veiling of his contempt.

I sat calmly, for the idea was too new, and I had too many connecting links to recall, to have the full horror of the disgrace come home to me at once. He did not give me time for thought, but interrogated, "Well?"

Having to speak, I asked, "You are sure of what you say?"

"Sure!" he ejaculated. "Why, it's been known to every one for years, and I was one of the trustees appointed by the court to look out for Miss Walton's interest in what property your father couldn't take with him!"

"If you are a trustee of Miss Walton," I said, growing cool in my agony of shame, "can you spare me five minutes and answer some questions?"

That I did not deny knowledge of the wrong seemed to raise me in his opinion, for he nodded his head and looked less stern.

"How much did my father—How much did Miss Walton lose?" I inquired.

"One hundred and thirty thousand was all the property he could negotiate, and we succeeded, by bidding in his house over the mortgage and by taking the library at a valuation, in recovering twenty-six thousand."

"Was that amount net?"

"Yes."

"Then in 1879 the amount due Miss Walton was one hundred and four thousand dollars?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, Mr. Blodgett," I added, rising. "I am only sorry, after your former kindness, to have given you this further trouble. I am grateful for both." In my shame I did not dare to offer him my hand, but he held out his.

"Mr. Maitland," he rejoined, "I'm a pretty good judge of men, and I don't believe you have done wrong knowingly."

"I never dreamed it," I almost sobbed, shaking his hand.

"It's pretty rough," he said. "I hope you won't show the white feather by doing anything desperate?"

I shook my head, and walked to the door. As I reached it a new thought occurred to me, and, turning, I asked, "What has the legal rate of interest been since 1879?"

For reply he touched an electric button on his desk, and I heard the lock click in the door by which I stood. He pulled a chair near his own, and commanded, "Come here and sit down," in such a peremptory tone that I obeyed. "Why did you ask that question?" he catechised.

"That I may find out how much I owe Miss Walton."

"What for?"

"To attempt restitution."

"I hope you know what you're talking about?"

"I'm still rather confused, but so much I can see clearly enough."

"How much property have you?"

"My father left me something over thirty-one thousand dollars."

"Thirty-one from one hundred and four leaves seventy-three."

"And interest," I corrected.

"I thought that was what you were driving at," he surmised calmly. He pulled out a volume from its repository in his desk, and turned backwards and forwards in the book for a few moments, taking off figures on a sheet of paper. "Eight years at five per cent makes the whole over one hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars less thirty-one."

"Thank you."

"Where can you get the balance?"

"I must earn it."

He looked at me with a slightly quizzical expression and asked, "How?"

"That I have yet to think out."

"Any business?"

"I have the offer of a professorship at Leipzig, but that's out of the question now."

"Why?"

"It would give me only two thousand a year at first, and the interest on the debt will be over six thousand annually."

"What do you know?" he questioned.

"Most of the languages and dialects of Europe and Asia, and a good deal of history and ethnology. I am fairly read in arts, sciences, and religions, and I know something of writing," I answered, smiling at the absurdity of mentioning such knowledge in the face of such a condition.

"Humph! And you'd have sold all that for two thousand a year?"

"I think so."

"Well, that only proves that a man had better cultivate his gumption, and not his brains!"

"If he wishes to make money," I could not help retorting gently.

"You're just like Maizie!" he sniffed, and his going back to your familiar name in my presence was the best compliment he could have paid me. "You two ought to have died young and gone to heaven, where there's nothing to do but cultivate the soul."

"I wish we had!"

"Why don't you go to your mother?"

"For what?"

"For the money."

"Has she money?"

"Yes. She had a little money when she married your father, which she kept tight hold of; her mother's death, two years ago, gave her more, and she has just married a rich man."

"I don't know yet what I shall do," I replied, rising.

"Well," he advised kindly, "before you blow your brains out or do anything else that's a waste of good material, come and see me again."

"Thank you," I responded. "And, Mr. Blodgett, as a favor, I ask that all I have told you, and even my presence in New York, shall be confidential between us."

"Nonsense!" he growled. "I shall tell Maizie all about it."

"Miss Walton least of any," I begged.

"Why don't you insist, too, that Mrs. Blodgett, who intends that I shall inform her nightly of everything I know, sha'n't be told?" he queried.

"It grieves me to be a marplot of connubial confidences," I rejoined, responding to his smile, "but this must be between us."

"Have your own way," he acceded, and then laughed. "I'll have a good time over it, for I'll let Mrs. Blodgett see there is a secret, and she'll go crazy trying to worm it out of me."

He shook my hand again, and I felt ashamed to think that his voice and manner had once made me hold him in contempt.

I went back to the hotel, and thought over the past, seeing how blind I had been. Now for the first time everything became clear. I understood the trip to Europe and our remaining there, why my mother had left us, why Mr. Walton had been permitted to take you from us without protest, why we had not mingled with Americans, and my father's motives in making me write under a pen name, in registering me at hotels by it, and in giving that name to your servant. Now it was obvious why he never signed his articles, and why he appealed to me to let him aid me to make a reputation: it was his endeavor to atone to me for the wrong he had done.

Good-night, my love.