"This strange, painful news," he said, "is a greater shock to me than anything else in the world that I could hear of. I have received you Standish, and treated you as an intimate friend of my family, and had you in return, confined your deceptions to myself, I might yet have forgiven you; but knowingly, to extend your treachery to that innocent and unsuspecting girl, aware, as you were that she was all in all to me, is a base ingratitude that living or dying, _I_ will never forgive. What would she have become? blighted in hopes, ruined in prospects for life, and by my urgent request too, that, she would have been very soon, but for--you," he said, turning towards Guy, "you, my boy, have saved my heart from breaking, though I did not deserve it from you. I suppose it is too late to seek your forgiveness now after I have judged you so hastily, and punished you so severely, but God knows, I have repented of it many a time since." His voice broke down, into a weak sob, and he bowed his head. "You think too harshly of me, uncle dear," Guy said, advancing, "for I have long ago forgotten the past; the day I left your house I took my first step to good fortune, and I have never regretted your severity since, though it pained me much at the time. It has all blown happily over now, however, and I have tried in a measure to atone for the folly of my past, let us learn a lesson for the future from the misunderstanding, but in every other respect let us forget that it has ever occurred." "Bless you, my noble boy," were the words his uncle answered, "you are a treasure, and I am proud to own you." Meantime, the other two gentlemen, stood watching the strange proceeding, until Guy, remembering them, said--addressing all present-- "These gentlemen will explain their own presence." Whereupon, one of them, the most respectable of the two, stated in brief, business like terms, that "he had been the family lawyer of the Bencroft's for many years, and that previous to his recent demise, Nicholas Bencroft had laid information with him, against one Vivian Standish, for swindling him out of a considerable sum of money, and that he had come there to see the man identified by the one who knew him best--it being unnecessary now, to tell him, he concluded, that the punishment of his crime awaited him," he then drew back to make clear the way for his companion, who, as he advanced said, "And I sir, am the person engaged by the father of this young lady, previous to his death, to hunt up the mystery of his daughters' disappearance. The whole catalogue of her wrongs and misfortunes being attributed to you, you are my prisoner, until your trial has taken place."