"Oh, Mr. Knowles! I'm afraid I'm not a Christian. I can't love Mr. Tracy; he is such an awful man." [Illustration] CHAPTER XVI. A DISCOVERY. "IT is not wrong, Helen," remarked Mr. Knowles, "to hate injustice, oppression, and crime, wherever you see them, but you must try to forgive your enemies, whoever they are. Mr. Tracy, in his letter, speaks of you with great tenderness. Indeed, he seemed desirous of making up to you the loss you have met with by the sudden fall in the value of some of your stocks, by the fortune he should settle on you is the wife of his only son." "I wont touch a cent of his property," sobbed the excited girl. "I never will see Roswell if I can help it. But Mr. Knowles, what if I can't help it? If you know Mr. Tracy as I do, you wouldn't wonder that I'm afraid. I've heard him boast, time and again, that he never gives up any purpose. He hangs to it till he has accomplished it. There is only one thing that would stop him, and that is if I were married to another man." Helen glanced timidly in her companion's face as she said this, and her heart grew warm as he answered gently: "That's so, child! That's so!" "Would it be wicked for me to tell you some things I know about him?" she asked, eagerly. "Things I heard him tell himself, laughing and joking meanwhile." "I don't know that it would be wicked." "He had a party of gentlemen one night. They sat down to dinner at seven, and afterwards they drank a great deal of liquor. When we went back to the parlor, the company were all in gay spirits, and began to talk over their youthful pranks, as they called them. I wanted to retire, but Mrs. Tracy, and the wife of one of the visitors bogged me to stay. They said our presence was a restraint on the men. I wont call them gentlemen. I never shall forget the disgust, the loathing I had of my guardian, after that. "Why, Mr. Knowles, he confessed that all the while he was pretending in papa's presence to be religious, while he went regularly to church, and discussed religious subjects because he saw it fell in with the weakness of his 'boss,' as he called papa, he was acting exactly contrary to his wishes. "Several nights every week, after the store had been locked, a company of boon companions met there, and carefully securing the shutters to exclude every ray of light, gambled until the small hours. Sometimes the debating club met there, and caroused till morning. "One of the company asked how he obtained possession of the keys; and he shouted with mirth as he answered: "'Oh, it was the easiest thing in the world to humbug the boss! He had such an exalted opinion of me that he would have suspected any of the clerks sooner. When I told him that I wanted to balance my accounts for the month, and would like the store key, he gave it out at once. Sometimes I hinted that my boarding house was so noisy, I couldn't meditate and pray as I wished. On these occasions, he would offer me the key with tears in his eyes.'