Jennie Arlington sat disconsolately at a window in Mr. Leonard’s library. She was not alone. Mr. Augustus Wilson occupied a chair by her. They had been conversing for a short time.

“It is a distressing affair to Mr. Leonard,” he said. “This thing of finding himself robbed of valuable goods on every side, and quite unable to trace the thief, is a source of great annoyance, and may prove ruinous in the end.”

“I know it, Mr. Wilson,” she replied, “and wish I could help it.”

“You may be able to do something to help it,” he said, significantly.

“What do you mean?” she exclaimed, with a sudden flashing up.

“Simply that Mr. Leonard saw a piece of the lost silk in your possession. He seems to think that you got it from the boy, Will Somers.”

“Does he?” she asked, coldly.

Her visitor’s sharp glance could detect a nervousness beneath her apparent ease.

“Yes. I might have given him a different idea of the case, but thought it best to keep silent. I know, Miss Arlington, as well as yourself, that you did not get the silk from the boy. I know, as well as you, where it came from. I can appreciate your wish to keep silent, but something is due to Mr. Leonard.”

“You assume to know a great deal,” she said, defiantly.

“Not much assumption about it,” he coolly replied. “The thing is patent on its face. John Elkton is the man, and you cannot deny it.”

“John Elkton is no thief, as you insinuate,” she cried, red with anger. “I would much sooner believe such things of you than of him. I doubt if your honesty would weigh in the scale with his.”

“Facts are stubborn things,” he coolly replied. “I am not on trial now. He is. You must excuse me for speaking, Miss Arlington. John Elkton was connected with the theft of that silk, and I have abundant proof of it.”

“You have not, and you cannot have,” she answered, rising, but leaning heavily upon her chair. “If you came here on purpose to insult me, I can only say that you have succeeded, and that this interview had better close.”

“I am sorry to have offended you,” he replied. “I certainly had no such purposes as that. I came here to serve, instead of annoy you.”

“Serve me? In what way?” she asked. A pallor had replaced the flush.

“By keeping your secret. I alone have these proofs against John Elkton. I can suppress them. Of course I must aid Mr. Leonard in seeking the other thieves, but if the proofs in my possession are destroyed Elkton cannot be implicated. It is consideration for your feelings brings me here. I knew you would not wish him to be held as a felon.”

“No, indeed!” she said, clutching the chair, nervously.

“I am aware of your relations with him, and how bitterly you would feel any such disgrace, as your betrothal is known to all your friends. Of course your engagement must be broken. I care nothing for him, I care much for you, and wish to save you from disgrace. Your engagement can be quietly broken and the cause suppressed.”

“You are very kind, Mr. Wilson,” she said, turning a quick glance upon him. “What object have you in this?”

“Nothing but your good,” he replied, in his slow, steady way. “I have your welfare so deeply at heart that I would run any risk or do any deed to aid you.”

“Indeed!” she said. “I did not know I had so warm a friend in you.”

“You did know it,” he answered, abruptly. “You trifle with me now. You affect to forget our past intercourse, to forget that I opened the secret of my heart to you on a former occasion.”

“Yes, I remember your making a goose of yourself by making love to me when I was but a child,” she replied, with a curl of the lip. “I laughed at you then as I should laugh now at anything ridiculous.”

“I loved you then, as I love you now,” he said earnestly. “I forbore to press my claim when your fancy was turned elsewhere. I believe it was but a girl’s fancy that drew you to John Elkton. That dream is past now. You are a woman, and are free. I have a right now to press the love that I have nursed in silence till it has grown too strong to suppress. I have a claim on you that gives me the right to speak of my affection. I love you. You are or will be free. May I not offer my sincere affection? May I not lay claim to this dear hand? I who have so long loved you in silence and hopelessness?”

He attempted to take her hand, which she quickly withdrew. She still leaned upon her chair, with pallid face and set, compressed lips.

“When I am free I will let you know,” she said, with a touch of sarcasm. “It would be well for you to suppress this sudden passion till then. I do not imagine that you will die young from the pangs of unrequited love. I despise you too much to give a serious answer to such an unmanly and insulting suit.”

She walked with a queenly step across the room toward the door.

“Very well, then,” he cried, angrily. “You accept the other alternative. I will at once inform Mr. Leonard and the officers of what I have learned. Before this time to-morrow John Elkton shall be the tenant of a prison, and shall know that you have consigned him there.”

“And do you think,” she exclaimed, turning on him sharply and suddenly, “that I am such a weak and soulless woman as to desert the man I love because he has fallen a victim to the schemes of a villain? Nay, more, that I would sell myself, body and soul, to that villain to save my betrothed? Do your worst, sir. I defy and scorn you. I would rather wed John Elkton in a prison than you in a palace. But I believe that you are a liar and a knave outright.”

“You have defied me; that is enough,” he said, with a gloomy and resolute air. “But it is passion only that speaks in you. You will return to reason and be sorry for what you have said.”

“Never, sir, never!” she cried, passionately. “You have put yourself beyond the pale of my consideration by your base effort. This interview has lasted long enough. I cannot and will not bear it longer.”

She turned and swept through the door like an offended queen, without another look at the man, who stood there pale and discomfited, biting his lips in impotent anger.