"YOUR FATHER IS GEORGE HARRISON, THE CONVICT!"

"Another letter! Gad, they come thick and fast! Ta, ta, Fedora! sorry I haven't time to read it; but a fellow must look out for his own neck, and mine has felt deuced uncomfortable ever since I found out that that devil Jack Wren is on my trail. How did he strike it, I wonder; for I thought we had covered up our tracks very cleverly. But the fellow's a sleuth-hound, they tell me, and I've got to escape him. Poor Fedora! it's a pity to leave you to your fate, but the sooner I pack up and be afloat on the briny, the better for my neck," muttered Ivan Belmont, airily, as he moved about his shabby apartment, in a very unsavory quarter of Boston, gathering together his belongings, that were scattered about on chairs and tables.

The letter from Fedora that he had found on coming in he tossed unread into the fire, and as he ransacked the bureau drawers he hummed, carelessly:

It was long past midnight. The tempest had spent its force, and only a fitful, soughing wind and gusty dashes of icy rain remained as souvenirs of its terrific fury. Its worst force had not reached this neighborhood, and Ivan little dreamed that the prison doors had been hurled asunder by the blind force of nature, and that his partner in wickedness had been released and was hastening to their rendezvous in eager joy.

Recklessly he flung on the floor her dainty garments and pretty trinkets, seeking the diamonds he had given her in the days when he loved her first—love that had long ago tired, and had now grown heedless, indifferent.

"But what the devil did she do with them? I'm positive she left them here. Can they have been stolen? They are worth a pretty penny to me now—they would help me to get away from this place that is getting too hot to hold me."

"Help you to get away, you coward! Who helped me, I wonder? The devil, I suppose. They say he takes care of his own!" said a mocking voice behind him. He turned with a start. There stood Fedora!

Fedora or her ghost? The voice was there, the glittering, steel-blue eyes; but where was all the prettiness, where the burnished golden locks, the silk attire? This woman was drenched with rain, clothed in rags, and the disheveled tresses that straggled over her brow and shoulders had turned dead white, and their silver gleam was in awful contrast with the drops of blood that trickled down her ashen face.

He stared like one turned to stone. He doubted the evidence of his own eyes. That voice, those eyes—but could it be Fedora?

"Yes, it is I," she said, answering that mute, wondering look. "I am here, escaped from the wreck of my prison to find you—you dastardly thief—trying to steal my jewels, your own gift to me! You shall suffer for this night's work! Villain! you tempted me to aid you in your crimes, then left me to suffer the penalty alone. But I will betray you, and you shall know how it feels to be shut within prison walls, deserted by the one who swore fealty forever in happier days!"

He had been so disgusted, so enraged, that he was about to retort in angry, sneering words that would drive her forever from him; but at her threatening words his defiant mood changed to one of cringing, abject fear. Though inwardly shrinking from her altered looks in keen disgust, he dared not show his feelings. He must temporize; he must turn her from her savage purpose.

He approached her; he held out his hand.

"Ta, ta, Dolly; we are not going to part in this fashion, are we? Surely you did not mind if I sold the diamonds to get you out of prison. It was a big bribe, I know; but the guard would not listen to a penny less. To-morrow you should have been free; but how lucky that you escaped, and we have the jewels still!" He slipped his arm around her, and—in spite of her anger, in spite of her suspicions of his falsity—the woman's head dropped against his breast.

She loved him with all the heart she had, this petted darling of the foot-lights; she who had trifled with the hearts of nobler men had found in this weak nature her ideal, and he led her on to lower and lower depths until she was wrecked on the shoals of sin.

Nestling in the arms that were so reluctant to hold her, Fedora told the man how she had escaped from her prison in the company of an aged prisoner—a convict under a life-sentence for murder.

"You have often told me that your father was dead, Ivan," she said. "Did you believe it, or was it a falsehood?"

"I—I—believed it," he replied, weakly.

"No, you did not," she replied, triumphantly. "Ah, my lord, how proud you have been of your connection with the Carews! Yet your father is an escaped convict under sentence for life! Have you forgotten his name? Let me refresh your memory. George Harrison—alias Dutch Fred. Ah, you start—you remember! Yes, he told me his whole history, and I gave him the address of your mother—once his wife. He will go to her, he said, and demand half her fortune!"

Ivan Belmont was silent a moment from chagrin. Then he rose superior to the situation.

"Ha! ha! how the mater will rave!" he laughed. "I wish papa success in plucking the madame. The devil knows what a time I had coaxing and wheedling pennies out of her pocket."

The vision rising in his mind of this proud mother and sister's consternation roused his risibilities, and he laughed loud and long. They had discarded him—flung him off like a dog. What a glorious retribution!

But they turned presently from even this savory morsel to their own affairs. Both were in peril, and it would not do to remain in reach of the law. Yet Ivan was by no means ready to give up his cherished plans. They sat far into the wintry dawn, exchanging confidences and plotting new schemes, to be unraveled on Fate's dark loom.