“I cannot talk about it,” he replied with almost fierce emphasis. “Ephraim Earle and I—” He started, caught her by the arm and turned his white face toward the door. “Hush!” he whispered, and stooped his ear to listen. She watched him with terror and amazement, but he soon settled back, and waving his hand remarked quietly: “The boughs are losing their leaves and the vines sometimes tap against the windows like human fingers. You were saying——” “_You_ were saying that Ephraim Earle and you——” But his blank looks showed that he had neither understood nor followed her. “Were you not good friends?” she asked. “Oh, yes, oh, yes,” he answered hastily; “too good friends for me to be mistaken now.” “Then it is from his looks alone that you conclude him to be an impostor?” The doctor did not respond, and she, seeming quite helpless to move, sat for a minute silently contemplating his averted face. “I know you did not talk with him long. Nor have I attempted to do so, yet in spite of everybody’s opinion but your own I have come to the same conclusion as yourself, that he is not Polly’s father.” The doctor’s lips moved, but no words issued from them. “That is why I press the matter; that is why I am here to pray and entreat you to save Polly and to save my son. _Prove this man a villain_, and force him to loose his hold upon the Earle estate before Polly’s money is all gone!” “Is it then a question of money?” asked the doctor. “Two months have passed and you are afraid that he will dispose of twenty thousand dollars!” “He has already disposed of ten of them and the rest——” “Disposed of ten thousand dollars!” “Yes, for old gambling debts, pressing matters which Polly could not let stand without shame.” “The wretch!” leapt from the doctor’s lips. “Was there no one to advise her, to forbid——” “You were gone and Clarke was afraid of seeming mercenary. I think the girl’s secret terror of her father and her lack of filial affection drove her to yield so readily to his demands for money.” An inarticulate word was the doctor’s sole reply. “And that is not the whole. Clarke’s career is endangered and the prospect of his carrying out his plans almost gone. Mr. Earle—I have called him so—does not hesitate to say that he must have five thousand dollars more by next October. If Polly accedes to this demand, and I do not think we can influence her to refuse him, Clarke will have to forego all hopes of becoming a member of the Cleveland firm, for he will never take her last five thousand, even if she urges him to it on her knees.” “It is abominable, unprecedented!” fumed the doctor, rising and pacing the room. “But I can do nothing, prove nothing. He has been received as Ephraim Earle, and is too strongly intrenched in his position for me to drive him out.” The absolutism with which this was said made his words final; and she slowly rose.