"I should have never known you," replied the woman, doubtfully. "She's inside, and expecting you, Frank. But, good gracious me! I don't know whether I'm doing right or wrong to let you meet here so. What a terrible scrape you've got yourself into! We thought you had run away." "Not yet, auntie, not yet. When I get ready to do such a thing as that I shall let you, my dear old nurse, into the secret first, now you may depend. But where is she? In the little parlor as usual? I'm just dying to hold my darling in my arms again." The woman threw open a door without a word, displaying a small but neatly furnished room. "Edna!" The daughter of Elijah Callister stood before the open grate. Frank rushed toward her with extended hand. "My love! my darling!" he cried, impetuously. "Thank God, we are together again!" The young girl drew back. Her face was pale, her bosom heaved--there were tears resting in her eyes. "One moment," she said, with an evident struggle. "It seems to me, Frank Mansfield, that, before admitting you to your old-time place in my heart, some explanation is due to me." At the same instant the door was heard to close. Mrs. Brown had discreetly retired, leaving the lovers alone. Frank drew back abashed. "I thought after what you said this afternoon--" he began, hesitatingly. "That I stood ready to receive you, without explanation, on your old footing? No, sir, nothing of the sort! I have some questions to put to you before that can be done." "Edna, I am yours--yours body and soul! Ask me what questions you please." "Then, sir, where have you been during all these weeks? You stand accused of a terrible crime before the world. If you are innocent, why have you not communicated with me? Why have you not come to tell me so before?" "Edna, I am innocent. I swear it before Almighty God and you, the woman I love." "I believe it. I maintained it against my father, against all the sneers and reproaches that he heaped upon your name. But when day after day passed, and I heard nothing from you, what was I to believe? What am I to believe now, finding you in my father's office and in disguise?" For the space of a moment Frank stood gazing upon her beautiful form in a maze of perplexity and doubt. What should he do? What should he say? To betray his plans to the daughter of his enemy was to frustrate them. He could see it at a glance. "Hook was right," he thought, bitterly. "I have made a mistake. I ought not to have come at all." He gazed sadly upon the girl for an instant, and then taking his hat from the table upon which he had thrown it, motioned to withdraw. "Edna, I--I----" He stood hesitating now, his hand upon the knob of the door. Instantly the girl's manner changed. Springing forward, she threw herself in the arms of her lover, and burst into a flood of tears. "Frank! Frank! Don't go. I can forgive anything, everything, but your slight to me." "My slight to you, dearest?"