“My dear,” he said, gently, “I would give anything on earth if you had confided in me before. In my desire to shelter a false and contemptible fellow I have let you run into a trouble that makes my blood boil to think of it. Now listen, Eunice, and believe I speak plain truth. Not only did Ash Carmichael throw me overboard the minute our father lost his money, but last February he was guilty of a transaction involving me that might have landed him in state’s prison if I had not consented to hush it up. Judge, then, if he is likely to present himself before you again. No, Eunice, he will never come back. He was a coward, a cad, a sneak, to gratify himself at your expense in that way; and my heart aches for you, dear. But now that you know him as he is you will never care for him again. Think how much worse suffering was his sister’s, to whom he wrote confessing all, when he was in abject fear that I’d expose him. He had the cunning to make her come East to beg for him. For, at the first sight of that brave, tortured girl I was disarmed of my thoughts of punishment for him. For her sake, not his, I and two or three other men he had involved in the affair resolved to let him go and never to speak of it. Except to you, now, the matter has not passed my lips. And you best know why I have broken our vow of secrecy.” Again Eunice hung her head. The crimson of deep shame deepened upon her face. For a time her voice was stifled by the sobs that shook her frame. “Don’t cry, little sister,” Tom went on, distressfully. “You make me feel like an ogre or an executioner. But in this case there was no such thing as being merciful; I _had_ to tell you to cure you, Eunice. Heaven knows the task was not to my taste. Some day, if the opportunity ever comes in your way, I should like you to say a kind word or do a kind act to that girl. She is a perfect heroine; and, if she did not fancy herself under such tremendous obligations to me already, I’d like to look Alice Carmichael up and try to help her.” “You are bigger and more generous than I am, Tom,” cried Eunice, between gasps of pain. “As I feel now, I pray God never to let me look upon one of their blood again!” * * * * * Four or five years later saw Mr. Ashton Carmichael a conqueror in the lists of New York’s smart society. Among all the portals that flew open at his magic touch there was one that remained obstinately closed. This was the very fine front door belonging to the new mansion up town in which Arden Farnsworth had, two years after her refusal to marry him, installed his bride, recently Miss Eunice Oliver.