Meanwhile he had received many communications, all of which, however, were made with the vague hope of getting a reward. None were at all reliable. At length he thought that it was useless to wait any longer in Canada, and concluded to go to New York as a centre of action. He arrived in New York at the end of December, and immediately began to insert his notices in all parts of the country, giving his address at the Astor House. One day, as he came in from the street, he was informed that there was some one in his room who wished to see him. He went up calmly, thinking that it was some new person with intelligence. On entering the room he saw a man standing by the window, in his shirt-sleeves, dressed in coarse clothes. The man was very tall, broad-shouldered, with large, Roman features, and heavy beard and mustache. His face was marked by profound dejection; he looked like one whose whole life had been one long misfortune. Louis Brandon had never seen any face which bore so deep an impress of suffering. The stranger turned as he came in and looked at him with his sad eyes earnestly. “Sir,” said he, in a voice which thrilled through Brandon, “are you Henry Peters?” A strange feeling passed over Brandon. He stepped forward. “Frank!” he cried, in a broken voice. “Merciful Heavens!” cried the other. “Have you too come up from the dead? Louis!” In this meeting between the two brothers, after so many eventful years of separation, each had much to tell. Each had a story so marvelous that the other might have doubted it, had not the marvels of his own experience been equally great. Frank’s story, however, is the only one that the reader will care to hear, and that must be reserved for another chapter. CHAPTER XX. FRANK’S STORY. “After you left,” said Frank, “all went to confusion. Potts lorded it with a higher hand than ever, and my father was more than ever infatuated, and seemed to feel that it was necessary to justify his harshness toward you by publicly exhibiting a greater confidence in Potts. Like a thoroughly vulgar and base nature, this man could not be content with having the power, but loved to exhibit that power to us. Life to me for years became one long death; a hundred times I would have turned upon the scoundrel and taken vengeance for our wrongs, but the tears of my mother forced me to use self-control. You had been driven off; I alone was left, and she implored me by my love for her to stand by her. I wished her to take her own little property and go with me and Edith where we might all live in seclusion together; but this she would not do for fear of staining the proud Brandon name.