I.

      "And you give me only a week!"

      "I give you a week. Seven days, seven nights — isn't that time enough? It can be done in a minute!"

      "Oh, yes. It aint the time it'll take to do it, but its getting there — figuring it out — waiting for the chance — that's what calls for time. For if, when the minute comes, the job aint done right, my boy — it there's any slipping-up, it may take twenty years to pay for that one minute!"

      "I have made my terms. I have no others to offer. It you don't want to undertake the job, I must find somebody else who will. That's all!"

      "Now, don't get your feathers up and talk damn nonsense. I aint said I wouldn't take the job yet, have I? Lemme see. A week from to-morrow — that's Wednesday. Cash down sooner if the work's done sooner. Two thousand five hundred dollars, anyway, and as much more if you get the entire pile. I accept the terms. The job'll be done before the sun goes down Wednesday of next week. Here's to it — drink!"

      The Winter's sun forced its way through the one small, dust-covered window that lighted the under-ground drinking-saloon. This window, set down a foot or two from the pavement, was dark with cobwebs, and ill-fitted to admit either air or light. But it was no place for light, Crow Avery's saloon. The men who frequented it were of that kind who do their work best and chiefly in the dark. The room was not more than twenty feet square, with a ceiling so low that a tall person — as tall, say, as one of the two figures sitting at the farthest table — could not stand erect without scraping the plaster with the crown of his head. There were four tables altogether ranged along one of the walls. On the other side was a long, low bar, with very many black, ominous-looking bottles on the shelves behind, and half a-dozen barrels flanking the extremity. At midnight one would have found the place filled with short-haired, short-necked ruffians, and here and there, perhaps, a woman more dissolute than the men about her. At midnight the air would have been thick with tobacco-smoke and vile with gin and polluted with horrible oaths. Now, however — it was three o'clock in the afternoon — Crime and Sin had not come out of their holes. Crow Avery's was deserted except by the two men who, in low voices, had carried on the conversation recorded above.

      One of these men was the proprietor of the place — Crow Avery himself. His face was turned towards the window so that you got a better view of it than you did of his companions. It was a hard, brutal face, anybody could see that. Clean-shaven, the lines about the mouth and eyes were brought into bolder relict. Closely-cropped hair turned a trifle gray; small, penetrating eyes; a beaked nose; and a large, closely-shut mouth made up the surface-appearance of the physiognomy. About the high-cheek bones and the square, lower jaw was an unpleasant suggestion of brute-power. Crow Avery had lived in the material and moral darkness of his gin-den so long that the little good born in him must long ago have withered and died. He was in his shirt-sleeves now, with his elbows resting on the table, and only the black bottle between him and his companion. Long ago that bottle had come between Respectability and the man who faced the saloon-keeper. Then in turn it had come between him and Honesty, Decency and Humanity. Still he was not an old man — not much past thirty, and still he kept up the outward semblance of a gentleman. His clothing was of the best material and fashionable cut. His silk hat was nicely brushed, and the small diamond that glistened on his shirt-front was no base stone. As he sat in the shadow, it was difficult to get an accurate idea of his face, except that the nose was straight, the upper lip covered with a short, black moustache, and the chin well rounded and shapely.

      He did not drink to the toast of Crow Avery, but rose from the table, and as he drew on his gloves said:

      "We understand each other, then?

      "We do, Billy, and we trust each other — for the good reason that our necks are in the same noose. Take a little gin!"

      "Not of your kind. And remember the cash is awaiting you. You have only to come and get it — when the job is done!"

      He passed hurriedly out of the room, up the steep steps that led to the sidewalk, and in a moment more was lost in the crowd that surged through the narrow street.

      Alone with the black bottle, Crow Avery took another and longer drink, tipped back in his chair, and, staring hard at the gin, muttered:

      "Twenty-five hundred dollars! I wouldn't a' done it for twenty-five thousand once!

II.

      In the suburbs of a sleepy little town, twenty miles removed from the roar and rumble of the groat city, stood the old Rexford house. Three generations of the family had lived under the protecting roof of this sturdy building. David Rexford, after years of unflagging devotion to his lodgers and day-books, had planned and erected the house on a scale which seemed lavish in its grandeur at that day. David alone had been old when the house was new. He retired unwillingly from the getting of gold at sixty. Paralysis crippled him, but he dragged out a helpless existence for a quarter of a century after the big house was completed. His son William inherited the fat, fortune, but not the money-getting faculty of his father. He had a foolish fondness for books, for pictures, for knowledge and other things which have no appreciable value in our day and generation. While he did not squander his rich inheritance, he permitted much of it to slip through his fingers, and he never added a dollar to it by any effort of his own. Somewhat late in life, William Rexford married. Two children, a boy and a girl, were born to him. Soon after his wife died, and he found the keenest pleasure of his life in his children, as in after years he came to know his bitterest sorrow in one of them. The elder, the boy, who bore his father's name; was handsome, headstrong and heedless until he reached his early manhood. Then his headstrongness became arrogance, his heedlessness dissipation. The fond father would have covered the prodigal's misdeeds, whatever their enormity, with the mantle of his exhaustless love. But the boy put himself out of the protecting reach of his kin, and, brought up in the iron grip of the law, at twenty-one he was convicted of forgery and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. He had gone in a reckless; hot-headed, defiant boy; became but a desperate, cold blooded, dangerous man. Even then the father took him back, and, under the pressure of threats and persuasion, made over to him the share of the estate which would have fallen to him on the death of the older Rexford. Once in possession of his fortune, the son left the old homestead, nor had his father ever seen him since. Young William, as people called him, turned his property into ready money, and for a period which equaled that of his imprisonment he lived royally, but always selfishly. The hundred thousand dollars which had come to him without knowing a day's labor, save that he performed for the State, went, every dollar of it, in dissipation and self-indulgence. When it was gone he turned to the only occupation for which he ever showed any aptitude — the occupation of crime. He was believed to have been implicated in a daring bank-robbery, and he was known to be the proprietor of a disreputable gambling-house. So he lived in the shadow of the gallows, apart from those who would have been his friends, a companion of those who trod the blackest paths of sins dark catacomb.

      When at last William Rexford, the senior, came to feel and know that the son in whom he had placed his fondest hopes, for whom he would willingly have laid down his life, was lost, worse than lost to him forever, the whole nature of the man changed. Where before he had been pliable, tender and kind-hearted, he became inflexible, hard and misanthropic. Only for his remaining child, Alice, had he any of the sap of human kindness left. Alice Rexford was beautiful, without a mark of that external beauty which man admires. Some trouble with the spine had shut out from her forever the hope of physical health. Her plain features and crippled figure had little to recommend them to a stranger. But those who knew her best — knew her utter self-abnegation, her patience and gentleness and purity of heart — knew that she was beautiful. What strange fate had linked this white soul to a brother lost to every sense of manhood and humanity?

      Dismally the December wind howled about the spectre trees which shut in the old Rexford mansion. It was evening, and father and daughter were seated in the cheerful room which served as a library. A roaring fire in the great, open, fireplace threw a genial warmth over the apartment. The softly-shaded lamp half revealed, half hid the faces of William Rexford and his daughter. The former held in his hand a letter, and his eyes were fixed staringly upon the bold, black writing.

      "Yes, I've answered it," he said, more to himself than to his companion — "I have answered it. That he should have dared to write such words as these to me — threats which only a villain could conceive of!"

      "But you promised, father, to burn that letter, and to try and forget that it was ever written."

      These words from Alice, spoken in a singularly soft and musical tone, did not lessen the anger with which her father replied:

      "Yes, I promised to burn the letter, and burn it I will. But don't speak to me of forgetting! Forget that a son of mine, who even after he had brought disgrace and sorrow to my gray hairs, by becoming a felon, was received back with open arms; whose miserable hypocrisy led me to place in his hands the inheritance which should rightfully have fallen to you; who has wasted his substance and lives now by dark and despicable means; who has not one particle of common decency in his groveling nature; and who now, in face of all the past, has the brazen effrontery; to write me such a letter as this — don't ask me to forget!"

      He rose from his chair, and, crumpling the letter between his hands, paced up and down with hasty tread. A look of pain crossed the white face of the daughter as she followed her father with pleading eyes. Suddenly he stooped, and, in a voice from which the high tones of anger gave place to one of hard resolution, he said:

      "Alice, I am an old man. I have already passed the allotted period of human life. My hair in whitened, my limbs are feeble, and my heart is broken. It has come to this that the son for whom I would have laid down my life has become a felon, who threatens the life of his father, if that father does not rob his cherished daughter of the diminished fortune which she will inherit. Only God in His inscrutable providence can tell why this blow should have fallen on me. But I will not make your life more wretched than it is. See — I keep my promise (he flung the letter into the fire as he spoke), "I consign this sheet of paper to the flames. You shall never more be made miserable by any reference from me to the wretch who wrote it. I feel that I have but a little longer to live in this world, and I will devote that little time to making you happy. I burn the letter, and with it I burn every feeling of the father towards the man who was once my son!"

      Silence came upon the two after this scene. William Rexford sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands. When he lifted it he seemed to have grown older by many years in that brief interval.

      Wearily the evening wore on. Alice tried once or twice to draw her father into conversation, but the poor attempt he made to evince an interest in passing matters made it little less than cruelty to talk with him. So the patient and tender daughter hid her own grief in silence. When the bronze clock on the mantel struck ten — the clock was a memento of those happier days when William Rexford had found pleasure in all forms of art — the father arose, kissed his daughter tenderly, saying:

      "I am not quite myself, to-night, Alice. The excitement of the evening has made this pain about my heart a little worse. So I think I will go to bed now. I shall be better to-morrow."

      He turned his face from her a little hastily, and moved towards the door that led into the broad hall. But he had taken only two or three steps when he staggered, pressed his hand to his heart, and with a low moan sank to the floor. Cripple as she was, his daughter sprang from her invalid's chair, and in an instant was kneeling at his side. But the unseen messenger had come with terrible suddenness. Even as she lifted his head, the spark of life went out with never so much as a flicker. She loosened his cravat and collar, called him pleadingly, piteously, to answer her, and would not believe the terrible truth. At last, in despair, she dragged herself to that portion of the room where a bell-cord hung, and pulled it violently. The staid old man-servant, who had lived forty years in the house, answered the summons. The other servants wore quickly notified, and one of them, on a fleet horse, despatched for the nearest physician. It was a sad mockery, this sending, for human aid to save one who had already entered the Silent Land; but it soothed a little the grief of the daughter, and that was something. But when the doctor came, an hour later, there was nothing for him to do.

      Even before the morrow the broken-hearted father was better — better as you and I and all of us shall some day be.

III.

      Rumor was not at fault, as she has often been, from the days of Virgil to the days of stocks, in her whisperings concerning the life of William Rexford Jr. Indeed, Rumor did not do Mr. Rexford justice. For once, at least, a bad man was worse even than his worst enemies or his worst friends declared him to be. Let our measure of badness not be mistaken for the Pharisees. If you know the world at all, you know that no calling in itself makes a man bad. Rexford was a gambler, a forger, a felon; but he was not supremely bad because of any of these things. He might have been all three, and still have been better than the sleek hypocrite who went regularly to prayer-meetng of a Thursday night, and lost his money in Mr. Rexford's gambling-house on a Saturday. But not even that sleek hypocrite; and for the sake of humanity let us hope that no other man in the world, in the face of what has happened in the past, could have written this letter to his father:

      It was this letter which William Rexford Sr. had thrown into the fire in his library on the evening of his death. It had reached him ten days before, and, although he had answered it immediately upon its receipt, he had read and reread it many times before he finally consigned it to the flames. With every fresh reading the ingratitude of the son he had once loved stung deeper than a serpent's tooth. So that death, perhaps, from mercy, struck him down.

      The letter had been posted on the day of its date — November 29. Three days later William Rexford Jr. received this reply:

      Rexford the junior read this letter in the office of the Brackton Hotel on the morning of December 1. He went to his room, reread it, then lighted a fresh cigar, and, seating himself comfortably in an easy chair, fell to thinking. That was dangerous business with him. For when he thought he plotted, and when he plotted nor God nor man stood in the way of his dark plans. He finished the first cigar, a second and a third. The morning turned to noon, and the hours went by until the shadows of the early December twilight began to creep into the room. It was not until then that the thinker rose from his chair. A darker shadow than that of the Winter twilight was upon his face, but the deep corrugations were gone from his brow. He had done thinking. From his room he passed down to the bar of the Brackton, and there, calling for brandy, poured out three fingers and drank it as if it were water. Then from the hotel he made his way straight to Crow Avery's saloon, and held a long, low-toned conversation with the proprietor. Could that conversation have been overheard by the Law, as it was by Him who is greater than all laws, William Rexford Jr. would have found the iron bolts of a prison between him and the fulfillment of his plans.

IV.

      When Mr. Crow Avery was in the congenial atmosphere of his own resort, he appeared generally in his shirt-sleeves, a vest of dingy color but striking pattern, and a pair of checked trowsers, remarkable chiefly for their propensity of slipping down, thus necessitating frequent and vigorous hitches. A diamond of greater size than brilliancy adorned Mr. Avery's not overclean shirt-front, and a watch-chain, which in an emergency might have been used to draw the bucket out of a well, circled the lower part of his vest, and displayed many and magnificent charms. When in the street Crow Avery wore invariably a resplendent silk hat and a velvet coat with very broad binding and very conspicuous buttons; or at this season of the year the velvet was covered by an ulster of fearful and wonderful pattern.

      Neither those who knew him in his den nor those who had ever seen him in the street would have recognized Crow Avery in the man who stepped from the train at Baytown Station on the night of December 9. For this man had heavy, black whiskers and hair, and dressed in a suit of ministerial black, and wore a pair of spectacles with big green lenses. He was the only passenger in the lumbering coach that drove him to the Baytown Hotel, a quarter of a mile, perhaps, from the railway station. The spectacled gentleman registered his name with a certain deliberation which made it painfully apparent that he was not at all familiar with his pen, and perhaps not overfamiliar with his name.

      "Supper, sir?" inquired the clerk, as he turned the registry-book around, and saw written thereon, in very big small letters and vary small capitals, this inscription: "Joseph M. Bates, North Cumberville, N. Y."

      "No; I had supper in New York," replied Mr. Bates. "I should like to be shown to my room, though, and please call me at seven o'clock."

      A small, solemn callboy thereupon conducted the one guest of the day to a room, and left him with a kerosene lamp and the cheering remark:

      "Say, yer want to be careful with that there lamp, 'cause the screw part is kinder loose, and like enough she'll blow up!"

      But Mr. Bates: did not appear to be in the least afraid of affording the newspapers a paragraph through the instrumentality of the doubtful lamp., When he had closed and bolted the door, he did two things which, had they been seen by the affable clerk below, would have caused that gentleman unbounded surprise. The first of these was to relieve himself of the heavy, black whiskers and hair, along with the green-lensed spectacles; and the second was to draw from the inside pocket of the ministerial black coat a flat bottle filled with some undetermined liquid. From this cherished companion he drew a long draught of spiritual comfort.

      "Maybe you won't do for Mr. Rexford, but you're good enough for me — that is, for Mr. Joseph M. Bates of North Cumberville, N. Y.!"

      He placed the bottle on the table, drew up a chair, and, producing a sheet of paper from his pocket, begun to study it attentively. This paper contained a roughly-drawn plan of the first and second stories of the Rexford mansion. In a half-whisper he muttered. to himself, while his fore-finger traced the course indicated by his words:

      "This here's the hall window on the west. Enter here. Keep to the right-hand wall, which'll lead to the stairs. Broad, easy steps, and no danger of creaking. Here's the second story. Here's where the stairs come up. Keep to the left-hand wall this time. Pass two doors. Stop at third door. Never locked, easy-swinging hinges, opens without a sound. Two windows to the right. Bureau to the left, set against the wall. Look out for bureau. Twelve foot from bureau to bed. High posts hung with curtains. Soft, now — devilish soft. Just one ray from the bulls eye. Steady, now — devilish steady. If one blow does it, good. If not, two, three — a dozen! Then, a full head of light from the lantern. Take second of the two windows. Open soft. Roof of the piazza only two feet down. Drop from roof, twelve feet. Back to road through the pine-trees — and there's the job done. Easy — easy enough!

      He took another long pull at the bottle, then sat a long while staring hard at the bare wall, then slowly folded up the paper, returned it to his pocket, and for a third time tipped the bottle until fully half its contents disappeared. For the next hour or two he paced the room restlessly, sometimes stopping to gaze out of one of the small windows into the blackness of the night. He lighted a cigar and tried to smoke; but it did not quiet him, and he flung it aside. He took a newspaper from his pocket, resumed his seat and tried to read. There was a column account of the hanging of a poor devil in the interior of the State. He had committed murder, and the stings of a guilty conscience had driven him to confess the deed. The reader throw down the paper with an oath. For another hour he paced the room. Then the light began to grow dim, for the oil in the lamp was running dry. The man cursed the lamp, took up the bottle and whispered to himself:

      "Twenty-five hundred dollars down, and as much more if he gets the whole pile! Here's hoping he'll got it, and damn him!"

      He finished the bottle and threw himself on the bed, but not to sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED.

V.

      When the email callboy knocked at Mr. Bates' door at seven o'clock the next morning, he performed an unnecessary duty, for Mr. Bates was not asleep. Arrayed once more in his black whiskers and green goggles, the gentleman from North Cumberville appeared at the breakfast table, but made a sorry effort at a meal. From the dining-room he passed to the office, and there, while making arrangements for a horse and carriage, he took occasion, incidentally, to inform the clerk that he was on his way home from New York, which he had just visited for the first time in his life; that he had stopped over at Baytown for the purpose of visiting some of his wife's relations who lived a few miles from the town; and that he probably should return to the hotel in time for supper, so as to take the evening train for Albany. When the horse and carriage were ready, Mr. Bates drove away at a moderate gate in the direction of his wife's relations farm — which happened also to be the road leading to the Rexford mansion. It was then precisely a quarter to eight o'clock. If Mr. Joseph M. Bates had delayed his start five minutes longer, it is highly, probable that he would have concluded not to visit his wife's relations at all. For it was at ten minutes to eight that David Fletcher drove up to the Baytown Hotel with the startling news that the master of the Rexford mansion had dropped dead the evening before in his own library.

      Unconscious of the grim messenger that had preceded him, Mr. Bates drove over the frozen road until it brought him to the Rexford house. He did not alight, but brought the horse to a walk while he studied the grounds and mansion with a keen, retentive gaze. He even drove up the roadway which the first Rexford had laid out, and which cut through the grove of pines, skirted the west side of the house, and then wound gradually about until it joined the main highway again half a mile distant. Mr. Bates noted the closed blinds and the air of oppressive solitude which hung over the place; but he was very far from attributing these things to their true cause. His observations were evidently satisfactory, and if any occupant of the house had caught sight of him it would be no unusual thing to discover strangers driving through the private roadway to get a better view of the quaint and venerable old mansion.

      Mr. Bates wife's relations must have slipped from his mind. At all events, he did not visit them that day. When he struck the main highway again he turned his horse's head in the direction of Sreknoy, which was nine miles distant from Baytown. Sreknoy was as thriving, as noisy, and, I regret to add, as wicked as Baytown was dull, sleepy and virtuous. Great mills were to be found at Sreknoy, and the whirr of wheels filled the air and gave to life the struggle and strain of manufacture. Drinking-saloons were also to be found in that overworked village, and these sucked in a lion's share of the operatives hard-earned wages. The proprietor of one of these places had served his apprenticeship in a Bowery beer-garden, and taken his degree at the bar of an up-town hotel. Crow Avery had known him years before, but it is quite certain that the Sreknoy publican recognized no acquaintance in the black-whiskered stranger who entered his saloon that morning and remained there until six o'clock in the evening.

      Although the distance from Sreknoy to the Rexford mansion was only seven miles — the latter being two miles from the Baytown Hotel — still it occupied Mr. Bates a good hour and a half to make the distance. The horse was not speedy, the night was black, and the road unfamiliar; but, apart from all this, Mr. Bates was deeply engaged in the same business which we have already seen pursued by William Rexford Jr. He was thinking.

      The Rexford mansion had what to the city mind would appear as two front doors. That is, the front of the house proper facing the south and the highway was entered by a door leading into the main hall, which ran the entire depth of the house, wide enough for three modern hallways. On the east was another entrance, quite as imposing as the one in front, and this led into a second hall, which met the other.

      On this memorable night Fate or something else guided the man with black whiskers, who had drawn up his horse on reaching the old homestead, to the east entrance. As the most important result of his long meditations, he had resolved to get a more accurate knowledge of the interior of the house than the plan in his pocket afforded. And he had further resolved to enter boldly as a visitor who had once been a friend to the prodigal son William. Had Mr. Bates gone to the south door, something there black and ominous, which hung from the heavy bell-knob and swayed to and fro in the dismal night air, might have altered his plans. But he chose the eastern entrance. And so it came about that he did not know it was the house of death at which he applied for admission.

      "Is Mr. Rexford at home?"

      The old man-servant, whoso own eyes were red with weeping, and who had answered the sharp summons at the door, treading on, tip toe, gazed in strange amazement at the untimely visitor who put this question.

      "Mr. Rexford Sr., I mean. Is he at home?"

      The old servant made answer in the bushed tones which the presence of death imposes even on those who do not mourn:

      "He is at home, sir — that home which awaits all of us, sir — Mr. Rexford died last night."

      "Died!" The stranger repeated the word in a voice so unlike that he had assumed in putting his previous inquiries that one might have fancied it another being who spoke. "Died!" he muttered again, staring in a dazed, mechanical way at the servant.

      "He dropped dead, sir, in his library last night," continued Old Thomas. "It was very sudden, sir — heart-disease, so the doctor says. And it was a big heart, a warm heart, such as there are none too many in this world, sir. Will you leave your card, for Miss Alice is fit to see no one now?"

      The stranger, who had entered the hall upon the first opening of the door, and from whose eyes the dazed look had not yet gone out, answered quickly:

      "No matter about the card. Dead, you say? It was the old man I wanted to see — your master. I — knew him years ago. I — wouldn't have come here if I'd known it — what you say — that is — that he's dead. And no matter about the card. I — I had some news from his son — young William, you know — some important news, and that is why I came. You hear me — it was to bring news of the son that I came to this house!"

      He had begun speaking in a low, hesitating tone; but as he proceeded his voice grew louder, and the last words were uttered almost defiantly, as if addressed not to the amazed servant, but to some invisible listener. And so, indeed, they were. For Death had robbed red-handed Murder of his victim, and the man was speaking to that spectre which had beckoned him on and still hovered grimly at his side.

      "News of the son — that was all," he repeated, turning abruptly to depart; but at that moment the door at the end of the hall opened and a woman's voice, inexpressibly yet sweetly sad, uttered these words:

      "I will see him, Thomas — see him gladly, if he has news of my brother!"

      "It is Miss Alice," said the servant in a whisper. "She wants to see you — come!"

      The man hesitated. His first impulse was to rush from the house. He had no business there. Death had attended to that for him. But why run away? It was only a woman — a grief-stricken woman, and not the law, that wanted him. Besides, he was well disguised. He was Mr. Joseph M. Bates of North Cumberville, N. Y.

      "Come," repeated old Thomas, laying his hand upon the man's shoulder; "Miss Alice is waiting."

      His fingers had already grasped the door-knob, but at these words the man turned, and in silence followed the servant to the library. As he entered he saw a white-faced woman, dressed in black, seated in an invalid's chair. His loud-spoken words had reached her ear, and she had wheeled the chair to the door, opened it and bade the stranger enter. The bitter grief of that moment had kindled anew in her gentle breast the flame of a sister's love. Her bruised heart hungered for news of the worthless wretch who had never been more to her than a brother in name.

      "I heard you mention my brother," she said, as the door closed noiselessly upon old Thomas. "Perhaps you are his friend, and can give me his address, so that I may tell him of — of all that has happened!"

      Her voice trembled as she spoke these words. The man, who had sunk into a chair in the corner of the room, looked about him, but made no answer. Cheerily the fire crackled in the open chimney. Pleasant to the eye was the warm, rich interior, with its heavily-curtained windows, its walls hung with many a rare picture, its massive bookcases filled with costly volumes, its curiously-carved mantel, whereon ticked the bronze clock steadily, musically, as if time brought no grief, no sorrow — nothing but the silver notes of its own bell that struck the hours. The soft, thick carpet on the floor, the table with its carved legs and. covering of blue and gold, the easy-chairs and lounge, and the many adornments of curious art presented a picture of comfort and luxury strange to the eyes of the man who gazed upon it. Strange, too, was the gentleness of the woman's voice that addressed him; strange to him the peace and quiet of the scene; strange the atmosphere of home and love and refinement; strangest, perhaps, of all, the Book which lay open upon the lap of the crippled woman. So, groping blindly in this newly-revealed world, it is not strange that he found no words to answer her question.

      "Can you give me my brother's address?" she asked again.

      "I'll take any message to him you'd like to send," spoke the man, and this time his voice was as subdued as his questioner's. But now his eyes no longer turned from one object to another, but were fixed steadily in front of him. What was it he saw? Only that which he had seen night and day for more than a week past. Only that which had come to him first in his dreams on the night after his interview with William Rexford Jr. Only that which had kept him company in his room at the Baytown Hotel, which had flitted before him in the saloon at Sreknoy, which had driven hack with him in the darkness, and which had stalked before him when he had entered the house of death. It was there still — there before him in the softened light of the quiet room — the horrible red-handed spectre! Why should it haunt him now, when he could not do its bidding?

      "Tell him, then," said the sister — "tell him that his father is dead. Tell him that if he comes back to the old home he will be welcome still. Tell him that I will share with him all I have, and that I have never ceased to pray nor to hope for his deliverance from the chains of evil which have bound him."

      From his shadow in the corner the man turned his eyes quickly to the face of the speaker. Then as quickly they riveted themselves anew on the spectre.

      "I'll tell him that, miss, as quick as I get to the city. And I won't forget it!"

      "Thank you. And oh, sir, if you have any influence over my brother, I beseech you to use it to save him — to save him from the terrible path which he blindly treads, and to restore him to a better and nobler life. You are an older man than he, and perhaps your appeal will not be in vain."

      Was it the heat of the room, or the gin he had drunk, or the reaction of a long and terrible strain upon his nerves? Or was it the flickering into life of that flame which sin had so long smothered in his breast, and which the world believed was forever quenched? Whatever it was, this appeal from the pure and saintly woman before him caused a choking sensation in the throat, and a dimness of the eyes such as the man had not known for many, many years.

      "You will do as I ask, won't you?" pleaded the gentle voice. "Remember that I am his sister, and that I have no one in the wide world to lean upon now if ho turns from me. I am a stranger to you, sir, but I am crushed down with my grief; and oh! you cannot tell how wretched, how lonesome, I am. So do not think it strange that I appeal to you, if it be in your power to help me, to reclaim a lost brother. Surely, surely God will reward you if you will become the means of saving him — of giving him back to me, who am left alone, all alone!"

      He could stand it no longer. Springing from his seat, Crow Avery pulled the black whiskers from his face and snatched aside the wig and spectacles. His breath came quick and short. His broad chest heaved tumultuously under the black coat. He stood with one hand resting upon the back of his chair, the other clenched, while his eyes glared defiantly. Before that glare the spectre cowed and slunk away; but the sorrowing woman, with no vestige of fear in her white face, met the man's gaze steadily, unflinchingly. Even surprise scarcely found a place in that serene countenance. Her grief was too absorbing to permit of even the momentary sway of any other passion. At another time the sudden and startling act on the part of this unknown visitor might have called forth a cry of terror from Alice Rexford's lips; but now she uttered no word, only waited with a strange composure for the man's next move.

      "Miss," he began, speaking with painful effort, "when you talk to me of God and saving your brother and the like, you don't know who you're speaking to. I'm Crow Avery. Maybe you don't know who Crow Avery is? — it's better that such as you don't. He's the keeper of the worst dive in all New York. For thirty years he aint heard the name of the Lord spoken, except as an oath, until he heard it here from your lips to-night. And what fetched him here? He came to commit a crime — a worse crime than you, miss, could rightly understand, even if I told you what it was. And you ask me to save Billy. I say again you wouldn’t do that if you knew me. But I've pulled off my disguise. I've told you who I am and what it was that fetched me here. That aint like Crow Avery, they'd tell you down in the city. But do you know, miss, and don't think me a flat for saying it, for they'll all allow that Crow Avery, whatever else hr may be has got plenty of sand — bottom, I mean, miss — but do you know, coming into this room to-night on top of hearing that the old man — your father, miss — had dropped dead, and finding you here mourning for him and reading out of that there Book, and the place here so cosy and quiet and peaceful like — it carried me back, miss, to them days when I was a boy and had a home, too. Not fixed up like this, for my folks was poor, but still it was home. And many a night, when I was a youngster, have I seen my mother sitting at the old table in the kitchen and reading out of that there same Book that you was reading out of to-night. You wouldn't think it, maybe, now — nobody would think it — but there was a time, miss, when Crow Avery used to kneel down every night and say his prayers at his mother's knee. Don't think me a flat, miss, but it all came back to me as I sat here looking at you. And when you got to talking about saving your brother, and about God's rewarding me — rewarding Crow Avery — and me thinking all the time of what it was that fetched me here to-night — I couldn't stand it, miss. Something in your voice, miss — and you'll not take offense at what I'm saying — something in your voice brought back my mother, who aint been in my mind for years. She used to talk to me in that way — the way that you did — soft and gentle like. And it came back to me that night she died, and all the words she spoke, and the blessing she gave me. Them was the days when Crow Avery knew how to pray. But no matter. I feel easier now. I've got it now. I've shown you my hand and I throw it up. If you can still ask me, knowing the kind of man I am, to help in getting your brother back, I'll do it, miss. I'll do my level best for Billy, though I'm afraid 'twill prove a bad job. But before you ask me remember what I am, and what it was fetched me here to-night!"

      "It was God that brought you here to-night!"

      At those words, spoken in the woman's sweet voice, the spectra glided out of the room. And as he disappeared the man heaved a great sigh of relief and sank back into his chair, trembling with strange emotion.

      "Knowing who you are, the motive that led you to come here to-night, and what you have told me of your life, I still ask you to help me in saving my brother."

      She took up the Book from her lap, and, holding it out to him, added:

      "Give him this, and tell him that Alice sends it. It was his mother's, and when we were children we used to read its pages together. If — if he should refuse to accept it, even when you have told him all ——"

      "Then, miss, I'll send it back to you safe and sound," said the man, as he came forward and took the Book from her outstretched hand.

      "No, do not send it back," she rejoined softly. "If my brother will not take it, keep it for yourself. It may bring back those better days of which you have told me."

      He turned in silence, and, picking up the whiskers, wig and spectacles, resumed his disguise. Then, half-hesitatingly, he advanced again to the table and held out his hand. She took it gladly. He pressed her white, cold fingers, made an effort to speak, failed, and so turned quickly and strode from the room.

      In the hallway the old servant came out noiselessly from the shadows and held open the door.

      "Good-night, sir," he whispered.

      But the stranger, making no response, passed hurriedly out of the house of death. He had gone in with the red-handed spectre bearing him silent company. He came out with the Book in his hand.

VI.

      For two cents, on the morning of December 10, William Rexford Jr. bought a piece of highly-important information. It was only a six-line paragraph in the newspaper, and doubtless it passed unnoticed by a majority of readers. It was this:

      This two cents worth of news was read by William Rexford Jr. at the breakfast-table in the Brackton Hotel. What ever the sensations it may have produced in his breast, there was no outward indication, either of sorrow, surprise or disappointment. The man was too thorough a gambler to give way to the outward manifestation of any passion. He read this paragraph as coolly, as deliberately as he had read the preceding one, which briefly recounted the suicide of a broker.

      And yet he know, from the moment his eye fell upon these words, that he was reading not only his father's obituary, but his own death-sentence.

      As often he had done before when the hard problems of sin called for solution, he lighted a cigar, threw himself into a chair and thought — thought until the corrugations in his brow stood out like whip-cords. If on this day the course of his thoughts stretched back to the better days of his boyhood, to the broad charity and loving kindness of the father who lay dead, to the patient, helpful sister who was mourning now alone — If any of these memories entered his mind, surely there was no indication of the fact in his face. But if remorse came not, looking back, neither came any shrinking from fear, looking ahead. He had taken his chances and the deal had gone against him. That, was the beginning, that was the end, of his philosophy. A few days before he had sat in that same room and deliberately planned the murder of his father. By that murder he had counted with absolute certainty upon destroying the will which he knew existed, and thus opening the way to the legal robbery of at least half his sister's inheritance. He had resolved then that, if through any chance the plot miscarried, he would put a bullet through his own brain. The plot had miscarried. Death, coming naturally, had thwarted the scheme which death through the hand of the assassin was to have consummated. To appeal to his sister's quick sympathies or through any strategy now to seek to get hold of the will never entered his mind. He looked only at the one fact revealed in the six-line paragraph — and that was that the game had gone against him.

      Those who saw him on that day could recall afterwards nothing extraordinary whatever in his manner or his deeds. As was his custom, he went forth from the hotel at about noon, lighting a fresh cigar in the office. As was his custom, he took a walk of a couple of miles in Broadway, dropping in at one or two congenial haunts and drinking in each a pony of brandy. As was his custom, he went to his gambling-house, entering the room at precisely four o'clock, the hour at which the bank opened. As was his custom, he remained three or four hours about the place, now and then playing against the dealer for no higher stakes than the excitement thus afforded. As was his custom, he returned to the Brackton Hotel at eight o'clock, ate a dainty if not hearty dinner, and again sauntered out, presumably to return to the gambling-house. That was the last seen of William Rexford Jr. alive. In an open hallway in upper Broadway they found his body early the next morning with a bullet through the brain. There was no letter, nor card, nor any written word about his person to establish his identity. But attached to the handle of the small ivory-mounted pistol which his fingers clutched was an envelope bearing these words:

VII.

      I was up at Baytown last Autumn. The old Rexford mansion still stands. Its gentle mistress sheds sunshine still on all who meet her. You may find Crow Avery any night on his beat down by the West-street wharves. They like him, the rough longshoremen and the rougher sailors. For when, as sometimes he is forced to do, he takes them in the worse for liquor, he treats them like man. And sometimes he gives them a bit of good advice along with a quarter to buy their breakfast. It is this:

      "Shake it, my boy, shake gin! Don't tell me it's got a grip on you and you can't. Look at the grip it had on Crow Avery five years ago! And he aint touched a drop since he closed the dive — God bless the woman and the Book!"