He led her gently toward a sofa near the window, and seated himself by her side. "It's weeks since I have seen you, Frank. In your trouble could you not trust me?" "Can you trust me, little girl?" he cried, clasping both her hands within his own. "Can you trust me, when I tell you that I did not rob the Webster Bank, that I am not guilty of the terrible crime with which the newspapers have had me charged?" "Frank, I can trust you in anything; but only think! It is three weeks since you left me in this very room--left me to seek my father and ask his consent to our marriage. I have not seen you since." "Dearest. I could not help it. I saw your father. He refused my request. I--I--that is--I have been so situated that I could neither see nor communicate with you since." The cheeks of the youth blushed red as he spoke. The memory of his dissipation and folly in the presence of this innocent girl seemed to crowd upon him with crushing force. How unworthy he was of love like this? How---- But his thoughts were interrupted. Edna Callister had spoken again. "Frank, I believe your innocence firmly," she said, in clear, decided tones, "I believe it first because I know your heart, second, because--because--oh, how can I say it! Because--Frank, you will not betray me--because my father tries to make me think you guilty, and I know my father to be a very wicked man." "Edna!" "It is true, Frank. You know it is true. It is my firm belief that he is at the bottom of a plot against you, and that you know this to be the fact. Is it not so?" "Edna, I cannot tell you." "But you must. I insist upon knowing. It is because you have discovered his baseness at last, because you know what I say to be true that you have kept away from me, and hate me for all I know. It is for this reason that you are watching him in his office in this disguise." "Edna, I love you and shall love you always, no matter what your father may be to me. I promise faithfully---- Hark! what noise was that?" It was the sound of some one without the window tapping gently upon the pane. Rising hastily, Frank strode to the window and raised the shade. "Great Heaven! again!" With face the color of death the young man leaped back from the window, the perspiration starting in great drops from his pallid brow. "Look--look! Do you see her?" he breathed, hoarsely, pointing with one finger toward the window facing which both the lovers now stood. "Why, Frank, it's your mother! What in the world can she be doing here?" It was a woman who stood in the little courtyard without, her face pressed against the pane. It was the strange woman who has already figured very prominently in this tale--the mother of Frank Mansfield, whom he believed as firmly as he believed in his own existence to be now lying in her grave. The face, form, figure were all the same. The apparition of Trinity church-yard stood before him now.