Louis Tracy

Nancy’s pitiful little story was soon told. During the last year she had often met the Honorable Philip Lindsay, second son of an impoverished Scottish peer, and now a lieutenant in a line regiment stationed at Aldershot. They discovered each other, in the first instance, at a hunt ball in Leicestershire, and a simple confusion of names led the man to believe that the pretty girl with the blue eyes was the hired companion of the daughters of the family with whom she was staying. Her friends—like herself, just emancipated from the schoolroom—fostered the deception, which she and they found amusing; but Lindsay’s Celtic blood was fired by the knowledge that he had found the one woman in the world he wanted to marry, be she poor as Cinderella. Before the girl realized that the handsome young soldier was not of the carpet-knight type, he was telling her he loved her, and asking her to wait for him till he got his captaincy or secured an adjutant’s berth in a territorial battalion, and they would wed.

Of course, there were explanations, and tears, and a good deal of the white-lipped tragedy of youth. Lindsay, like a gallant gentleman, refused to be dubbed a fortune-hunter, and went back to his regiment, where he threw himself into the dissipation of musketry instruction with a cold fury that surprised and gratified his colonel. Then Nancy found that her heart had gone with him, and wrote a tearful request that they might never meet again; whereupon the sprite who controls these affairs brought Marten and his daughter to a grand review at Windsor—and who should be on some notable general’s staff but Lieutenant the Honorable Philip Lindsay? After that the veriest tyro in the methods of romance must see that the general would invite the American millionaire to dine with him that evening, and that Lindsay should be allotted to Nancy as her dinner partner.

There were thrills, and flashing glances; but Caledonia remained both stern and wild, with the certain result that he and the girl grew more desperately enamoured of each other than ever.

But this is not the love-story of a new Derry and another Nancy; so it may be taken for granted that twenty-four and nineteen were suffering the approved pangs, and were given every opportunity to develop the recognized symptoms. Our real concern lies with a man of middle age, around whom these minor happenings revolved like comets around the sun—itself ever fleeting into stellar depths. Not that Power felt any resemblance to a star of magnitude at that time. Though he never doubted that he was again at the mercy of irresistible forces, dragging him he knew not whither, the simile that presented itself to his mind was that of a log being swept over a cataract. Despite his brave promise to the weeping girl, he had no plan, no hope of successful intervention. He caught at one straw as the swirling current gripped him. This Italian prince might be a very excellent fellow, and the soldier a bit of knave; then it would be his bounden duty to exhort Nancy to filial obedience, that time-honored principle productive of so much good and so great evils.

“What is Mr. Lindsay’s address?” he inquired.

She told him.

“And is there any real need for present anxiety? You are far too young to think of marriage.”

“Father says my mother was wed at twenty. He got rather angry when I retorted that she died at twenty-four. But the real trouble is that that horrid Giovanni Montecastello is pressing for an engagement. Father spoke of it this morning. No wonder I am in such a rebellious mood!”

“Does Mr. Marten know Lindsay?”

“Yes. He regards him merely as one of the thousand nice young men one meets in London society.”

“He is not aware of his attachment for you?”

She raised her hands in horror. Clearly, Hugh Marten was master in his own household. His daughter might be the apple of his eye; but he brooked no interference with his perfected schemes, even from her.

“At any rate,” persisted Power, “he will not compel you to accept Prince Montecastello tomorrow, or next day. Can’t you hold out until, say, your twentieth birthday?”

“This morning I promised to decide within a month.”

“And what did he say?”

“He smiled, and remarked that I chose my words carelessly. Evidently I meant ‘accept’ when I said ‘decide.’”

“Well, then, we have a month. Great things can be achieved in that time. Fortresses which have taken ten years to build have fallen in a day. So be of good cheer. I begin the attack at once.”

“Will you please tell me what you intend doing?”

“Firstly, I must see my army, which is composed of one man, Philip Lindsay. Secondly, we must call on the citadel to surrender. Your father is not aware that Mr. Lindsay may be his prospective son-in-law. He must be enlightened.”

“There will be an awful row,” declared Nancy, unconsciously reverting to the slang of a dismayed schoolgirl.

“The capture of a stronghold is usually accompanied by noise and clamor. What matter, so long as it yields?”

“And afterward?”

“Afterward, like every prudent general, I shall be guided by events. Come, now; we’ll go down to the beach, and you shall dab your eyes with salt-water.”

“Is that a recipe to cure red eyes?”

“It’s an excuse for blue ones showing a red tint.”

The girl smiled pathetically. “Somehow,” she said, “I always feel comforted after a talk with you. You haven’t known it, Mr. Power; for I have been forced to conceal my troubles; but every time we meet you send me away in a more assured frame of mind.”

She, in turn, did not know that he winced as if she had struck him. Truly, he was paying a heavy reckoning for the frenzy and passion of those far-off days in the Adirondacks, and, worst of all, the seeming ashes of that ardent fire threatened to blaze out anew.

As they walked back to the village they encountered a well-dressed man, a stranger. By this time Power was so thoroughly acquainted with the little hamlet’s inhabitants that he recognized some by name and all by sight; but this man was unknown to him.

That evening Howard said, “By the way, you remember an inquiry from Mowlem & Son, New York? The man who made it was in the village today. I saw him, soon after Miss Marten and you strolled on to the beach.”

Power described the stranger, and Howard identified him; but the matter was dismissed as a trivial coincidence. Indeed, Power had affairs of moment to occupy him. Dacre, it appeared, was primed with facts concerning the Principe del Montecastello.

“His people are the famous Lombardy bankers,” he said. “I have an idea, based on ethnological theories, that they belonged originally to one of the ten tribes; but they were ennobled during the seventeenth century, and remained highly orthodox Blacks till the present king came to the throne, when they ’verted to the Whites.* I believe that this change came about owing to their association with Marten in an Italian loan. Anyhow, the existing scion of the princely house is rather a bad hat. Why are you interested in him?”

* The Papal and Constitutional parties in Italy are often differentiated thus briefly.

“He is a suitor for the hand of a young lady whose welfare I have at heart.”

“Not Nancy?”

“Yes.”

“The devil he is!” and Dacre expressed his sentiments freely. “Why, I’d prefer she married our local road-mender; because then, at least, she would have a decent, clean-minded husband. Marten must be losing grip. Confound it! Why doesn’t he go to Paris or Naples, and find out this fellow’s antecedents? I feel it’s absurd to doubt you, but can you really trust your informant?”

“I have it from Nancy’s own lips.”

“Oh, dash it all! Can nothing be done to stop it?”

“Much, I hope. Tell Howard what you know, and he will start for the Continent at once to verify it. Meanwhile, may I invite a friend to come here tomorrow?”

“Need you ask? We can put up six more at a pinch. But I can’t get over Montecastello’s infernal impertinence. Yet, it’s fully in accordance with Italian standards of right and wrong. Your young count or princeling can live like a pig until matrimony crops up. Then he becomes mighty particular. The bride must bring not only her dowry, but an unblemished record as well. I suppose, in the long run, it is a wise thing. Were it not for some such proviso, half the aristocracy of Europe would disappear in two generations.”

Power passed no comment; but he sent the following letter by the night post:

He passed a troubled and sleepless night. Dacre’s careless if heated words had sunk deep. They chimed in oddly with a thought that was not to be stilled, a thought that had its genesis in a faded letter written twenty years ago.

When Howard went to London next day he took with him a cablegram, part in code and part in plain English. It’s text was of a peculiarity that forbade the use of a village postoffice; for it ran, when decoded:

Then followed Power’s code signature and his address.

A telegram arrived early. It read:

So the witches’ caldron was a-boil, and none might tell what strange brew it would produce.

Lindsay came. Nancy had described him aptly. The British army seems to turn out a certain type of tall, straight, clean-limbed, and clear-eyed young officer as though he were cast in a mold. Power appraised him rightly at the first glance—a gentleman, who held honor dear and life cheap, a man of high lineage and honest mind, a Scot with a fox-hunting strain in him, a youngster who would put his horse at a shire fence or lead his company in a forlorn hope with equal nonchalance and determination—not, perhaps, markedly intellectual, but a direct descendant of a long line of cavaliers whose all-sufficing motto was, “God, and the King.”

The two had a protracted discussion. Power felt that he must win this somewhat reserved wooer’s confidence before he broached the astounding project he had formed.

“I take it,” he said, at last, seeing that Lindsay was convinced he meant well to Nancy, “I take it Lord Colonsay cannot supplement the small allowance he now makes you?”

“No. It’s not to be thought of. Scottish estates grow poorer every decade. Even now Dad makes no pretense of supporting a title. He lives very quietly, and is hard put to it to give me a couple of hundred a year.”

“Then I can’t see how you can expect to marry the daughter of a very rich man like Hugh Marten.”

“Heaven help me, neither do I!”

“Yet you have contrived to fall in love with her?”

“That was beyond my control. She has told you what happened. I fought hard against what the world calls a piece of folly. I—avoided her. There is, there can be, no sort of engagement between us, unless——”

“Unless what?”

“Oh, it is a stupid thing to say, but you American millionaires do occasionally get hipped by the other fellow. If Marten came a cropper, I’d have my chance.”

Power laughed quietly. “You are a true Briton,” he said. “You think there is no security for money except in trustee stocks. Well, I won’t disturb your faith. Now, I want you to call on Mr. Marten tomorrow and ask him formally for his daughter’s hand.”

“Then the fat will be in the fire.” Evidently, Philip and Nancy were well mated.

“Possibly; but it is the proper thing to do.”

“But, Mr. Power, you can’t have considered your suggestion fully. Suppose Mr. Marten even condescends to listen? His first question floors me. I have my pay and two hundred a year. I don’t know a great deal about the cost of ladies’ clothes, but I rather imagine my little lot would about buy Nancy’s hats.”

“In this changeable climate she would certainly catch a severe cold. But you are going to tell Mr. Marten that the day you and Nancy sign a marriage contract your father will settle half a million sterling on you, and half a million on Nancy. So the fat spilled in the fire should cause a really fine flare-up.”

Military training confers calmness and self-control in an emergency; but the Honorable Philip Lindsay obviously thought that his new friend had suddenly gone mad.

“I really thought you understood the position,” he began again laboriously. “I haven’t gone into the calculation, but I should say, offhand, that our place in Scotland wouldn’t yield half a million potatoes.”

“To speak plainly, then, I mean to give you the money; but it must come through the Earl of Colonsay. Further, if Marten hums and haws about the amount, ascertain what sum will satisfy him. A million between you, in hard cash, ought to suffice, because Marten has many millions of his own.”

Lindsay could not choose but believe; for Power had an extra measure of the faculty of convincing his fellow-men. He stammered, almost dumfounded:

“You make a most generous offer, an amazingly generous one. You almost deprive me of words. But I must ask—why?”

“Because, had life been kinder, Nancy would have been my daughter and not Marten’s. Yours is a proper question, and I have answered it; so I hope you will leave my explanation just where it stands. I mean to enlighten you more fully in one respect. Your host, Mr. Dacre, is a well-known man, and you will probably accept what he says as correct. After dinner I shall ask him to tell you that I can provide a million sterling on any given date without difficulty.”

“Mad as it sounds, Mr. Power, I believe you implicitly.”

“You must get rid of that habit where money is concerned. If you appease Mr. Marten, you will have control of a great sum, and you should learn at the outset to take no man’s unsupported word regarding its disposal or investment.”

Lindsay went to his room with the manner of a man walking on air. Nothing that he had ever heard or read compared in any degree with the fantastic events of the last hour. He could not help accepting Power’s statement; yet every lesson of life combated its credibility. It is not surprising, therefore, that he should be nervous and distrait when he reappeared; but Dacre soon put him at ease.

“Power has been telling me how he took your breath away, Mr. Lindsay,” he said. “But that is a way he has. When you and he are better acquainted you will cease to marvel at anything he says, or does. On this one point, however, I want to speak quite emphatically. Mr. Power is certainly in a position to give you a million pounds if he chooses, and, bearing in mind the history of his early life, and the high esteem in which he held Nancy Marten’s mother, I can sympathize with and appreciate the motives which inspire his present effort to secure that young lady’s happy marriage.”

But this incident is set down here merely to show how Power tried to make smooth the way by using his wealth. He himself placed no reliance in its efficacy. Lindsay went to Valescure Castle in high feather; but came back angered and perplexed. Marten had listened politely. There was not the least semblance of annoyance in his manner. He simply dismissed the suitor with quiet civility. When Lindsay, stung to protest, raised the question of finances, the other heard him out patiently.

“In different conditions I might have been inclined to consider your claim,” he said, when Lindsay had made an end. “Allow me to congratulate you on your position, which renders you a suitable parti for almost any alliance—except with my daughter. No, believe me, my decision is final,” for he could not know how ironical was his compliment, and took the young man’s uneasy gesture as heralding a renewal of the argument. “Miss Marten is pledged elsewhere. She will marry Prince Montecastello.”

“I have reason to know, sir, that the gentleman you have mentioned is utterly distasteful to Nancy,” broke in the other.

Marten’s face darkened; he lost some of his suave manner. “Have you been carrying on a clandestine courtship with my daughter?” he asked.

“No. A man bearing my name has no reason to shun daylight. That I have not sought your sanction earlier is due to the fact that I did not dream of marrying Nancy until a stroke of good fortune enabled me to come to you almost on an equal footing. Perhaps I have put that awkwardly, but my very anxiety clogs my tongue. Nancy and I love each other. She hates this Italian. Surely that is a good reason why you, her father, should not rule me out of court so positively.”

Marten rose and touched an electric bell. It jarred in some neighboring passage, and rang the knell of Lindsay’s hopes.

“I think we understand each other,” he said, with chilling indifference. “My answer is no, Mr. Lindsay, and I look to you, as a man of honor, not to see or write to my daughter again.”

Now, it is not in the Celtic nature to brook such an undeservedly contemptuous dismissal; but Power had counseled his protÉgÉ to keep his temper, whatever happened. Still, he could not leave Marten in the belief that his stipulation was accepted.

“I give no pledge of that sort,” he said dourly.

“Very well. It means simply that Miss Marten will be protected from you.”

“In what way?”

Marten laughed, a trifle scornfully. “You are young, Mr. Lindsay,” he said, “or you would see that you are speaking at random. I hear a footman coming. He will show you out. But, before you go, let me inform you that, so long as you remain in this part of Devonshire, Miss Marten will have less liberty of action than usual; and that will be vexing, because she is interested in some bazaar——”

Then Lindsay’s frank gaze sought and held the coldly hostile eyes of the man who was insulting him. “In that event,” he broke in, “you leave me no option but to state that I return to Aldershot by the first available train. It would appear, Mr. Marten, that I value your daughter’s happiness rather more than you do.”

He went out defeated, but every inch a cavalier. No sword clanked at his heels; yet he held his head high, though his soul was torn with despair. He saw nothing of Nancy. She had gone for a ride into the wilds of Exmoor, and had not the least notion that her lover passed through the gates of Valescure an hour before she entered them.

Power heard Lindsay’s broken story in silence. Even Marten’s callous threat of confining Nancy to the bounds of the castle left him outwardly unmoved.

“I am not altogether unprepared for your failure,” he said gently, when the disconsolate Lindsay had told him exactly what had occurred. “I compliment you on your attitude. As might be expected, you said and did just the right things. I approve of your decision to rejoin your regiment at once. The next step is to prevent Nancy from acting precipitately. I think all may be well, even yet. But you agree that it was necessary you should see Mr. Marten and declare your position?”

“It certainly seems to have settled matters once and for all,” came the depressed answer.

“By no means. It has opened the campaign. It is a declaration of war. I need hardly advise you not to have a faint heart where such a fair lady is the prize. No, no, Nancy is not yet the Princess Montecastello, nor will she ever be. You may not marry her, Mr. Lindsay; but he will not. I shall clear that obstacle from your path, at all events, and, it may be, assist you materially. My offer still holds good—remember that. For the rest, be content to leave the whole affair to me during the next three weeks. Don’t write to Nancy. It will do no good. I’ll tell her you were here, why you came, and why you went. Do you trust me?”

“’Pon my soul, I do!” said Lindsay, and their hands met in a reassuring grip.

A servant entered, bringing a cablegram. It read:

Then Power smiled wearily; for the real struggle was postponed until that sealed envelop reached him. There followed some disturbing days. He told Nancy of her lover’s visit, and its outcome, and had to allay her fears as best he could. Then, on the day of the bazaar, when he hoped to have many hours of her company, he discovered, in the nick of time, that Marten and the whole house-party from the castle had accompanied her; so he remained away.

Next morning he received a letter:

That same day Howard returned from the Continent. He brought a full budget. But, in a time when the world was even grayer for Power than for Nancy, one person contrived to give him a very real and pleasurable surprise. On the twelfth day after he had received MacGonigal’s cablegram a man in the uniform of a London commissionaire brought him a big linen envelop, profusely sealed. He chanced to be out when the messenger came; so the man awaited him in the hall. He rose and saluted Power when a house-servant indicated him.

“The gentleman who sent this package from London was very particular, sir, that it should be given into your own hands,” he explained. “He also instructed me to ask for a receipt written by yourself.”

“Indeed. What is the gentleman’s name?” inquired Power, scrutinizing the envelop to see if the address would enlighten him.

“Name of MacGonigal, sir.”

“What?”

“Yes, sir, MacGonigal. A stout gentleman, sir, an American, and very dry. He made me laugh like anything. Talked about holdups, and road agents, and landslides on the railway, he did. Oh, very dry!”

MacGonigal himself cleared up the mystery:

Power’s first impulse, warmly supported by Dacre, was to telegraph and bid the wanderer come straight to Devonshire, But he decided unwillingly to wait until he had won or lost the coming battle. He telegraphed, of course, and told MacGonigal to enjoy life till they met, which would be in the course of three days, at the uttermost. Then he retired, and spent many hours in writing, refusing Howard’s help, and taking a meal in his own room. It was long after midnight when his task was ended; but he appeared at the breakfast-table in the best of health and spirits.

Dacre, aware of something unusual and disturbing in his friend’s attitude of late, was glad to see this pleasant change, and talked of a long-deferred drive into the heart of Dartmoor.

“Tomorrow,” agreed Power cheerfully. “I am calling at Valescure Castle this morning, and the best hours of the day will be lost before I am at liberty.”

Dacre had the invaluable faculty of passing lightly over the gravest concerns of life. He had noticed the abrupt termination of Power’s friendship with Nancy, and guessed its cause; but he made no effort now to dissuade the other from a visit which was so pregnant of evil.

When the meal was ended Power summoned his secretary to a short conclave. Then he entered a carriage, and was driven to the castle by the roundabout road. He could have walked there in less time; but his reason for appearing in state became evident when he alighted at the main entrance, and a footman hurried to the door.

“Mr. Marten in?” he inquired.

“Yes, sir.”

“Is he in the library?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Kindly take me to him.”

“What name, sir?”

Power gave his name, and followed close on the man’s heels, and the servant did not dare bid such a distinguished-looking visitor wait in the hall. Still, he hastened on in front, knocked at a door, and said:

“Mr. John Darien Power to see you, sir.”

“Tell Mr. Power——” came a stern voice; but too late to be effective, for Power was in the room.

“You can tell me yourself, Mr. Marten,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry to thrust myself in on you in this way; but it was necessary, as my business is important and will brook no delay.”

Marten had risen from a table littered with papers. A cold light gleamed in his eyes; but he had the sense and courage to refrain from creating a scene before the discomfited footman.

“You may go,” he said to the man, and the door closed.

“Now, Mr. Power,” he continued, “we are alone, and, whatever your business, I must inform you that your presence here is an unwelcome intrusion.”

“May I ask why?”

“I mean to make that quite clear. In the first place, I have learned, to my astonishment, that you have wormed your way into my daughter’s confidence, and thereby brought about the only approach to a quarrel that has marred our relations. Secondly—but the one reason should suffice. I do not desire to have any communication with you or hear anything you have to say, or explain. Is that definite enough?”

Power turned suddenly, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket.

“How dare you?” Marten almost shouted.

“I had to answer, and I chose the most effective method,” was the calm reply. “Your long experience of life should have taught you that there are times and seasons when closing the ears is ineffectual. The wise man listens, even to his worst enemy. Then he weighs. Ultimately, he decides. That is what you are going to do now. Won’t you be seated? And may I sit down? Promise me we shall not be interrupted till I have finished, and I’ll unlock the door.”

Marten had not spoken to Power, nor, to his knowledge, seen him, for twenty-three years. The young and enthusiastic engineer he had sent to the Sacramento placer mine had developed into a man whose appearance and words would sway any gathering, no matter how eminent or noteworthy its component members. For some reason, utterly hidden from the financier’s ken,—for he was not one likely to recognize the magnetic aura which seemed to emanate from Power in his contact with men generally,—he was momentarily cowed. He sank back into the chair he had just quitted, but said, truculently enough:

“It would certainly be less melodramatic if my servants could enter the room should I be summoned in haste.”

Power unlocked the door, and drew up a chair facing his unwilling host.

“I am here,” he began, “to urge on you the vital necessity of dismissing the Principe del Montecastello from your house, and of permitting the announcement of Nancy’s forthcoming marriage with the Honorable Philip Lindsay, son of the Earl of Colonsay——”

“I guessed as much,” broke in Marten wrathfully. “Colonsay is as poor as a church mouse. It was your money which that young prig paraded before my astonished eyes.”

“I thought it advisable to state the motive of my visit frankly,” said Power. “I take it you are not inclined to discuss the matter in an amicable way; though I am at a loss to understand why—before I have reached any of the points I want you to consider—you are so markedly hostile both to me and to my purpose.”

“Then I’ll tell you,” and Marten took a letter from a portfolio on the table. “It appears that my late father-in-law, Francis Willard, had taken your measure more accurately than I. I remember treating you as a trustworthy subordinate; but your conduct during my temporary absence from America at a certain period led him to regard you as unprincipled and knavish. He has been dead several years; but he still lives to watch you. He left funds with a firm of lawyers in New York to carry out his instructions, which were that, if ever you were found hanging about any place where I or any member of my family was residing, I should be warned against you, because, owing to his action, and that alone, my dear wife was saved from something worse than a mere indiscretion in which you were the prime factor. A dead hand can reach far sometimes. On this occasion it has stretched across the Atlantic. The communication I received a few days ago is quite explicit. These lawyers have, at times, been much troubled to discover your whereabouts; but, on this occasion, their English agents have kept their eyes open.”

“‘Can vengeance be pursued farther than death?’” murmured Power, shocked by this revelation of Willard’s undying hatred.

The other did not recognize the quotation.

“Yes, and what is more,” he snarled, “they go on to say that Willard has intrusted a document to their care which will scare you effectually if this present remonstrance is unavailing. In that event, they will act on their own initiative, and not through me. I wonder what the precious scandal is?”

“I am here to make it known, known beyond reach of doubt or dispute.”

Marten moved uneasily. He tossed the letter back into the portfolio, and glared at Power in silence for a few seconds.

“I neither care to hear your secrets nor mean to attach any significance to them when heard,” he said, at last. “My only anxiety is to prevent you from sapping my daughter’s affections from me. Damn you, you have caused the one cloud that has come between us!”

“I, too, have Nancy’s welfare at heart.”

“I don’t see what good purpose you serve by alluding to my daughter in that impertinently familiar way.”

“Now we are close to the heart of the mystery. Nancy is not your daughter! She is my daughter!”

Marten leaned back in his chair, and glowered at the self-possessed man who had uttered these extraordinary words so calmly. His voice was tinged with sadness, it is true, but otherwise wholly devoid of emotion.

“Do you realize what you are saying?” demanded the older man, and the words came thickly, as though he spoke with difficulty.

“Yes.”

“But such raving is not argument. I thought you remarked that you were here to convince me of the error of my ways.”

Power produced an envelop, and extracted some papers. “Read!” he said, leaning forward and thrusting the folded sheets before Marten. “The letters quoted there are not in original, of course. I have left those in safe-keeping, and they will be burnt on the day I know for certain that my daughter is married to the man she loves. Read! Note the dates! I need not say another word. I have supplied such brief explanatory passages as are required. I was not aware that Mowlem & Son had tendered other evidence. Though slight, it is helpful.”

And Marten read, and his face, dark and lowering as he began, soon faded to the tint of old ivory. For his hawk’s eyes were perusing the story of his own and Willard’s perfidy, and of his wife’s revolt, and love, and final surrender. It was soon told. Nancy’s pitiful scrawl, left in the hut by the lake, Willard’s letter to Mrs. Power, the two cablegrams, and Nancy’s two letters from London—these, with Power’s notes, giving chapter and verse for his arrival at Newport, his flight with Nancy into the Adirondacks, and her departure with Willard, made up a document hard to disbelieve, almost impossible to gainsay. Some dry and faded strands of white heather had fallen from among the papers to the table, and Marten gave no heed to them at first. Now he knew he was gazing at the remnants of Nancy’s bridal bouquet.

The husband whom she loathed and had deserted, who was so detestable in her sight that she died rather than remain his wife, did not attempt to deny the truth of that overwhelming indictment. Indeed, its opening passages, laying bare his own scheming, must have convinced him of the accuracy of the remainder. With the painstaking care of one to whom the written word was all-important, he read and reread each letter, particularly Nancy’s pathetic farewell. Then, darting one wolfish glance at Power, he thrust his right hand suddenly toward a drawer. Power was prepared for some such movement, and leaped with a lightning spring born of many a critical adventure in wild lands, when a fraction of a second of delay meant all the difference between life and death. Marten was not a weakling; but he was no match for the younger man’s well-trained muscles. After a brief struggle the automatic pistol he had taken from its hiding-place was wrested from his grasp.

“You may shoot, if you like, when I have finished with you, but not before,” said Power, when his breathless adversary seemed to be in a fit condition to follow what he was saying. “I am prepared to die, and by your hand if you think fit to be my executioner; but first you must know the penalty. If I do not return to my friend’s house before a fixed hour, an exact copy of all that you have read will be sent to the father and uncle of that detestable blackguard you have chosen to marry my daughter. It seems that Italians are blessed with fine-drawn scruples in such matters, and the revelation of a blot in Nancy’s parentage will be fatal to your precious project. Copies will also be given to Nancy herself, and to Philip Lindsay. If I know anything of men, I fancy that he, at any rate, will not flout her because of her mother’s sin. In the event of my death, she becomes my heiress; so she will be quite independent of your bounty, and, after the first shock and horror of comprehension has passed, I think she has enough of her mother’s spirit, and of my fairly strong will, to defy any legal rights you may try to enforce as her reputed father. I am talking with brutal plainness, Marten, because you’ve got to understand that you are beaten to your knees. Now I’ll repeat my terms. Dismiss an unspeakable cad from your house—not forcibly, of course, but with sufficient conviction that he cannot refuse to go—agree to Nancy’s marriage with the man of her choice—and she should wait another year, at least, whether or not Lindsay be the man—and I burn everything, copies and originals, on her wedding day. Refuse, and you know the sure outcome. There is your pistol. It should do its work well at this short range. Shoot, if you must! I am ready!”