“Hush, Polly! I am sane enough,” came from the doctor with a sternness which was but the result of his overpowering emotion. “If I show agitation it is because dreadful memories have been awakened and because I must yet press hard against this most audacious man. Fellow! where do you think the money came from which you have been expending so freely to keep yourself out of jail?” “Ah! that is another small mystery with which I have thought it best not to concern myself.” But even while speaking he drew back, and a change passed over his bold countenance. Looking at the doctor with a strange and lingering gaze, he darted to a small rack at the end of the hall, and, tearing down a cloak and an old slouch hat, he thrust the one upon the doctor’s head and the other about his shrinking shoulders. Then he drew back and surveyed him. Suddenly he struck his forehead, and a triumphant smile, which was not without an evil glare in it, lit up his features. “Of course!” he cried, “I might have known it! You are the fellow who visited the Chicago hospital that night and who——” “And you are No. Thirteen!” was the quick response; “the man given over for dead! Oh, I see how you came to be here. Rascal! Villain!” “Doctor, allow me to return the compliment. Why did you use such subterfuges to transfer a fortune into my daughter’s hands? Was it from a good motive or because you felt yourself guilty of her parent’s death, and so sought to make amends without awakening suspicion?” “I should have whispered _ten_ thousand dollars into your ear instead of one,” muttered the doctor, lost in contemplation of the other’s duplicity. “I would have given no more sign for ten than for one,” answered Earle. “Remember, I had just heard of an unknown sum bequeathed to my daughter, and the larger the hush money offered the greater would the fortune have appeared.” Clarke, to whom these words were well nigh unintelligible, consulted Polly’s countenance, and seemed to question what she thought of them. But she was gazing at the doctor, wonder and repugnance in all her looks. “Oh, do you mean that even this money is not all my own? That it is not the gift of a stranger, but has come, in some incomprehensible way, from _him_?” The doctor, stung by her tone, turned toward her, saw the slender finger pointing accusingly at him, and drooped his head with a gesture of despair. “Does it lose its value,” he asked, “because it represents the labor and privations of twenty busy years?” “Does it represent anything else?” she protested. “Why should you give money to me?” “I cannot answer; not here. To-morrow at your mother’s grave I will. Come yourself, let your neighbors come, only see that one person is kept away. Years ago I loved Grace Hasbrouck, and I would not have her the witness of my shame. Keep her away, Clarke! My task would be too difficult were she there.” Clarke, to whom this avowal was a revelation, stammered and bowed his head. Mr. Earle softly smiled.