“I feel sure of that,” replied Dallas. “I feel quite sure of it.” Then, eagerly: “And you think they will be happy together!” “They love one another very much,” returned Kenyon. “And, in my opinion, that is everything.” There was a brief pause; and then the girl said: “I hope you are right, for I wish her all that is good. We have always been together, you see.” “You are really related, then?” “She is my step-sister, and is a few years younger than myself. When our parents died, Mr. Austin, who was my father’s friend, took us in and cared for us, for we were very small at the time.” “You lived with him at Seattle, then?” “Not altogether. Mr. Farbush and he were our joint guardians; most of the time we lived at the Fifth Avenue house.” “I would have thought that life with such a man as Farbush would have been far from pleasant.” “He was never really unkind until lately. Indeed, he has always been rather inclined to be generous. You see he had social pretensions; he entertained a great deal, and Anna and I were useful. And, then, all his life Mr. Farbush has been regarded as a model of integrity.” “I fancy that you believed this of him and the others--at first.” “Yes; Mr. Austin had always been eccentric, and when, toward the last, he began to whisper to me of his partners’ plotting against him, I thought it must be the result of his age and his illness--that his suspicions were imaginings.” “He made a confidante of you, then?” “Always; but especially so during his last illness. I believe he told me everything, including the whereabouts of his grandson, Philip Austin. He always insisted that his partners would endeavor to accomplish the death of Philip after he, old Mr. Austin, had passed away.” “So that Philip’s cousin, Scott, would come into the business?” “Yes. It appears that Philip had expressed himself as being against certain illegal features of the trade; but Scott had no such scruples. Indeed, he would have been more likely to have tried to extend them than otherwise. But Mr. Austin would whisper these things to me; no one ever suspected that I was so entirely in his confidence.” “But you did not consider the things told you as being worthy of serious consideration. That is, you did not really suspect the partners of wrong doing.”