'I shall never attach to you, David, any wrong your father has done--but let us say no more about this. You have ever been kind to me and my family; all that a sister can do for you, I will; beyond this, I hope you will not urge me. But there are some things to be thought of that must be done soon. Mr. Rutherford ought not to be kept ignorant of this matter. I have, out of kindness to you, told you what I have heard, and with a hope that you will make an effort to recover these papers, and thus in part frustrate an evil design, and perhaps save your father from a great calamity. William has told me that he has some faint recollection of feeling the trunk taken from his grasp, while he lay in that helpless condition. You think your father has not got it; probably then, it is in the hands of some person who does not realize the value of it, and may easily be induced to relinquish it.' 'I will do what I can, Hettie, to find out; but I caution you to let no person know a word of all this, at least not until I have failed in finding out some clue to it. Should Rutherford know what you do, and make attempts to search, or to expose matters, it would be the very way, as things are here, to have it put where no one can ever be the wiser for it. If my father has not got the trunk or the papers--and I don't believe he has, for the reason I have told you--it is probably in the hands of some one who has taken it from Bill, and is afraid to say any thing, for fear he would be charged with an attempt to murder.' David's reasoning appeared so plausible, that Hettie coincided with him as to the propriety, at present, of saying nothing further on the subject to any one. CHAPTER XXVII. There were many things in the circumstances of Mr. Cross, in themselves not very desirable. He had, to be sure, injured Mr. Rutherford; he had destroyed his home; he had by his artifice, brought him to cruel suffering and mortification; and he had wrested from him an instrument of immense value to its rightful owner, although of very doubtful utility to himself. But this very instrument had fallen into the hands of one whom he hated and feared, and was now held over him as a rod of terror, to force him into compliance with just such measures as the dictator chose. He had committed also a flagrant crime--one that rendered him liable to the severest penalty of the law; and the knowledge of what he had done was not confined to himself and his agents. One at least, besides, held the fatal secret; and although she was a lone widow, and very much under his power, still she might disclose it--perhaps she had already done so. His situation was no enviable one. He walked by the crater of a volcano; he could see the fires and hear the rumbling beneath him; at any moment he might be engulfed.