WHEN Ephraim Earle had taken up his abode in the cottage on the hill, Mrs. Unwin had moved into a small house on a side street in the lower part of the town. In the cozy parlor of this same house, she was now sitting with Polly, waiting for her son’s return.

He had been gone a couple of hours, and both Mrs. Unwin and Polly were listening anxiously for the sound of his step on the porch. Polly, with the impatience of youth, was flitting about the room and pressing her face continually against the icy panes of the window, in a vain endeavor to look out; but Mrs. Unwin, to whom care had become a constant companion during these last months, was satisfied to remain by the fire, gazing into the burning logs and dreaming of one whose face had never vanished from her inner sight since that fatal evening she had seen it smile again upon her as in the days of her early youth. Yes, she was thinking of him while Polly was babbling of Clarke; thinking of the last sentence he had uttered to her, and thinking also of the vague reports that had come to her from day to day, of his increased peculiarities and the marked change to be observed in his appearance. Her heart was pleading for another sight of him, while her ear was ostensibly turned toward Polly, who was alternately complaining of the weather and wondering what they should do if her father insisted upon having the money, right or wrong. Suddenly she felt two arms around her neck, and rousing herself, looked down at Polly, who in her restlessness had fallen on her knees before her and was studying her face with two bright and very inquiring eyes.

“How can you sit still,” the young girl asked, “when so much depends upon the message Clarke will bring back?” Mrs. Unwin smiled, but not as youth smiles, either in sorrow or in joy, and Polly, moved by that smile, though she little understood it, exclaimed impetuously:

“Oh, you are so placid, so serene! Were you always so, dear Mrs. Unwin? Have you never felt angry or impatient when you were kept waiting or things did not go to your liking?”

The sweet face that was under Polly’s steady gaze flushed for an instant and the patient eyes grew moist. “I have had my troubles,” admitted Mrs. Unwin, “and sometimes I have not been as patient with them as I should. But we learn forbearance with time, and now——”

“Now you are an angel,” broke in Polly.

“Ah!” was Mrs. Unwin’s short reply, as she stroked the curly head nestling in her lap.

“Clarke says that whatever happens I must be brave,” babbled the forlorn-hearted little girl from under that caressing hand. “That poverty is not so dreadful, and that in time he will win his way without help from any one. But Oh, Mrs. Unwin, to think I might be the means of giving him the very start he needs, and then to be held back by one—Dear Mrs. Unwin, do you think it wicked to hate?”

The question was so sudden, and the vision of the girl’s uplifted head with its flashing eyes and flushed cheeks so startling, that Mrs. Unwin hesitated for a moment, not knowing exactly what to say. But Polly, carried away now by a new emotion, did not wait for any answer.

“Because I am afraid I really hate him. Why has he come into our lives just when we don’t want him; and why does he take from us everything we have? If he loved me I could bear it possibly, but he don’t even love me; and then—and then—he lives in such a way and spends his money so recklessly! Don’t you think it is wrong, Mrs. Unwin, and that I would be almost justified in not giving him everything he asks for?”

“I should not give him this last five thousand, unless he can show you that his need is very great. No one will blame you; you have been only too generous.”

“I know, I know, and I am sure you are right, but notwithstanding that, something assures me that I shall do just what he wishes me to. I cannot refuse him—I do not know why, perhaps because he is my father.”

Mrs. Unwin, whose face had assumed a look of resolution as Polly said this, impulsively stooped and inquired with marked emphasis, “Then you feel—you really feel at last, that he is your father? You have no doubt; no lurking sensation of revolt as if you were sacrificing yourself to an interloper?”

Polly’s head sank on her clasped hands, and she seemed to weigh her answer before replying; then she responded with almost an angry suddenness.

“I wish I could feel he is not what he pretends to be, but the villainous impostor Dr. Izard considers him. But I cannot. No, no, I have no such excuse for my antipathy toward him.”

Mrs. Unwin leaned back, and her countenance resumed its dreamy expression.

“Then I shall not advise you,” said she. “You must follow the dictates of your own conscience.”

Polly rose and ran again to the window, this time with a cry of joy. “He is coming! Clarke is coming! I hear the gate click,” and she bounded impatiently toward the door.

In a few minutes she returned with her lover; he had a letter in his hand and he was contemplating her with saddened eyes.

“You will need courage, dear, to read this,” said he. “It is from your father and it puts his case before you very clearly—too clearly, perhaps. Your estimate of him was not far from correct, Polly. The story of his past life is not one you can read without shame and humiliation.”

“I knew it! I saw it in his face the first time I looked at him. I saw it before. I saw it in his picture. O Clarke, I shrink even from his writing; must I read this letter?”

“I think you should; I think you should know just what threatens us if you refuse him the money.”

Polly took the letter.

“You have read it?” she inquired.

But Clarke shook his head.

“I know the nature of its contents, but I did not wait to read the letter. He wrote it in a roomful of men, under a wager——” Clarke paused; why hurt her with these details? “But what does that matter? It is the facts you want. Come, screw up your courage, dear; or stay, let me read it to you.”

She gave him the letter and he read to her these words:

Dear Maida: You wish to know why I want another five thousand dollars after having received a good ten thousand from you already. Well, I am going to tell you. I have two passions, one for mechanical invention and one—I must be candid or this letter will fail in its object—for wild and unlimited pleasure. When I was young I had not enough money to indulge in but one of these instincts, but on the day I saw twenty thousand dollars in my hand, my other passion, long suppressed, awoke, and notwithstanding the fact that your mother lay dying in the house, I resolved to leave the town where I was known as soon as she was decently buried, for as I said to myself, the possession of twenty thousand dollars means the making of a fortune in Monte Carlo, and a maddening good time of it meanwhile.

But twenty thousand dollars do not always bring a fortune, even in Monte Carlo. I lost as well as won and though I had the good time I had anticipated I was not much richer at the end of five years than I was before my first invention was perfected. And then came a struggle. My good times grew fewer and I was forced to change my name more than once as I drifted from France to Italy and from Italy to Germany, seeking to reinstate myself, but being dreadfully hampered by my taste for the luxuries of life and the companionship of men who were sufficiently good-natured, but not always honest or sincere. At last I awoke to the necessity of action. I had an idea—one that had been floating in my head ever since the perfection of my first invention, and I realized that if I could but develop it practically I was sure to win a greater sum than that I had earned by my first efforts. But to do this it would take money—considerable money, and I had none. Now how could I remedy this defect? I knew but one way—by play. So I began to play for keeps, that is for a capital, denying myself this time and forgetting for once the delights that can be got out of a thousand francs. I saved, actually saved, and becoming strangely prosperous the moment I set a distinct purpose before my eyes, I won and won till I had a decided nest-egg laid up in the leathern bag which I secretly wore tied about my waist. But though this looked well, it did not satisfy me. I wanted thousands and I had but hundreds; so I took a partner who was not above a trick or two and—well, you do not understand these things—but matters went very smoothly with me after this, so smoothly that possibly I might have allowed myself one little glimpse into my old paradise if I had had a little more confidence in my own discretion and had not been afraid of the charms of a spot that swallows a man, neck and crop, if he once plunges his head into it. So for a few months more, I remained firm and grew steadily rich, till the day came when by an enormous streak of luck I became the owner of the very amount I had calculated it would take to put into operation my new invention.

I was in St. Petersburg when this happened, and for five hours I sat in my garret chamber feasting my eyes upon the money I had acquired, and shutting my ears to every sound from without that summoned me to the one short hour of wild enjoyment I had certainly earned. Then I put the money back into my bag, took the frugal supper I had prepared and went to bed with the determination of rising early and devoting the early hours of the morning to drawing my first plans.

But in that sleep I forgot the essential idea upon which the whole thing rested. It went from me as utterly as if it had been wiped out. In vain I prodded my memory and called upon all the powers of earth and air to assist me in my dreadful dilemma. I no more knew where to place the lines I had for years seen clearly before me than if I had never conceived the thing or seen it a completed object in my mind’s eye. Success had dampened my wits, or in the long struggle with my second passion I had lost my hold upon the first. The money necessary to elucidate the idea was mine, but I had lost the idea! The situation was maddening.

Fearing the results of this unexpected disappointment upon my already weakened self-control, I fled to my partner, who was a good fellow in the main, and begged him to take and keep for a week my leather bag with its valuable contents, adding that he was not to give it back to me till the seven days were up, even if I entreated him for it on my knees. He promised, and greatly relieved I left him for a stroll through the streets. You see I hoped to regain my idea before the week was out. But alas for the weakness of human nature! Instead of keeping my mind upon work, I spent my time in gorgeous rooms hung with mirrors in which was reflected every lovely thing I worshipped. I heard music, and—but why enlarge the vista further? Not having any goal for my energy, I fell, and when I got my money back, I lived another five years of boundless luxury.

When the last dollar went, I fell sick. I was in New York now, calling myself Harold Deane, and I boarded in a humble boarding-house in Varick street where there was one kind woman who looked after me without asking whether I had any money to pay for my keep. I sent fifty dollars to that woman out of the first money you gave me, my dear. Pardon the digression. I merely wished to show you that I am not without gratitude. When I recovered from my delirium and lifted up my head again in this wicked, fascinating world, my mind was clear as a bell and I saw, all in a minute, the machine again, line for line, whose action was to transform trade and make me a millionaire. Though I was too weak to sit up, I called out for pencil and paper, and at the risk of being thought crazy, scrawled a rude outline of the thing I had lost so long from my consciousness and which I held now by such uncertain tenure that I feared to lose it again, if I let the moment go by. This I put under my pillow. But when I awoke from the sleep which followed, the drawing was gone, destroyed by the good woman who thought it the mad scrawling of a delirious man. But this loss did not trouble me at this time, for the image remained clear in my mind and I was no longer afraid of losing it.

But again I had no money, and confident that in this country and in my present condition it would be useless for me to seek it in the old way, I cast about in my mind how to obtain it by work. Reason pointed out but one course. To get into some large business or banking establishment, and after winning the confidence of the moneyed men I would thus meet, to reveal my idea and obtain their backing. But this was no easy matter for a poor wretch like me. My life had left its imprints on my face, and I had neither means nor friends. But I had something else that stood me in good stead. I had audacity and I had wit, together with a sound business instinct as regards figures. And so in time I was successful and was taken into the banking house of Brown, Shepherd, & Co. in Nassau street.

Again I had an incentive toward thrift. For three months I worked for their good-will, and after that for the good of my purse. This latter phrase may not be plain to you, but when you consider the possibilities opened by a banking house to enrich a man accustomed to use his wits,—possibilities so much greater than those afforded by the selfish consideration of a few capitalists with whom one in my position comes in contact,—you can understand me more readily. At the end of that time I had fifteen thousand dollars laid away; and the company did not even know that they had sustained any loss. Well, I meant to repay them when I realized my fortune, but—luck has been against me, you know—the sight of the money was too much for me one night, and I forgot everything in a wild spree which lasted just one week.

When it was over and I came to myself I found that I had again forgotten the essential part of my invention, and that the money, which I always carried in the old bag about my waist and which I had never lost sight of before, was also gone, leaving me destitute of everything but the clothes I wore. I was desperate then and thought of killing myself, but I hated blood and have a horror of poison, so I delayed, expecting to go back to the banking house as soon as my appearance would warrant it. But I never went. I received from some unknown friend a warning that my absence had provoked inquiry, and that my reappearance in Nassau street would be the signal for my arrest, so I not only kept away from that part of the city, but left the town as soon as I had money to do so, wandering as far west as Chicago and sinking lower and lower as the weeks went by, till my old trouble gripped me again and I found myself in a hospital, given up for dead. The name by which I was entered there was Simeon Halleck, but I had worn a dozen during my lifetime.

I was regarded by those around me as a stray and by myself as a lost man, when suddenly one night, no matter how, I learned, my little daughter, that you, whose existence I had almost forgotten, was not only alive and well, but likely to become the inheritor of a pretty fortune. At this I plucked up courage, conquered my disease and came out of the hospital a well man. Having been known as Simeon Halleck, it was necessary for me now, in order to present myself as Ephraim Earle, to lose my old identity before I assumed my new,—or rather, I should say, my real one. How I did this would not interest you, so I will pass on to the day when, with my beard grown a foot, I ventured into this town and began to look around to see whether there was any place left for me in the hearts of my old friends or in the affections of my child. I found, as I thought—was it rightly?—that I would receive a decent welcome if I returned, and so after a proper length of time I re-entered Hamilton, this time shaven and shorn, and boldly announced my claims and relations to yourself.

The results of this action I am reaping to-day, but while I am happy and cared for, I do not find myself in a position to enjoy the full benefits of my position from the facts, now to be explained, that the police of New York are sharper than I thought, and when I went to Boston, after my first trip to this town, I found myself confronted by an agent of Brown, Shepherd, & Co. They had discovered my theft and threatened me with a term in state prison. My dear, I knew that no daughter with a fortune of twenty thousand dollars would wish to see her father suffer from such disgrace, so I made a clean breast of it and told him all my hopes, and promised if the firm I had robbed would give me three months of freedom I would restore them every penny I had taken from them. As they could hope for nothing if they landed me in jail, they readily acceded to my request, and I came to Hamilton followed by a detective, and with the task before me of obtaining fifteen thousand dollars from you in three months. Ten of these you have cheerfully given me, but you cavil at the last five.

Will you cavil any longer when you realize that by denying them to me you will land me in prison and brand your future children with the disgrace of a convict grandfather? I would say more, but the time allotted me for writing this letter is about up. Answer it as you will, but remember that however you may writhe under the yoke, you are blood of my blood and your honor can never be disassociated from mine in this world or the next.

Your loving father,

Ephraim Earle.

P. S. I have Brown, Shepherd, & Co.’s written promise that with the payment of this last five thousand, all proceedings against me shall be entirely stopped, and that neither as a firm nor as individuals will they remember that Ephraim Earle and Simeon Halleck are one.