"But he had reckoned without the son of his partner. Tom Reddon in some way learned the secret, and he was compelled to admit the young man into all of his plans. This came about some three years ago, while I was in school. I had known Tom Reddon in Chicago. He won my love. I cannot deny it, although I despise him to-day more deeply than I ever expect to hate again. He was even more despicable than my stepfather. Without the faintest touch of pity, he set about to obliterate every chance Rosalie could have had for restitution. Time began to prove to me that he was not the man I thought him to be. His nature revealed itself; and I found I could not marry him. Besides, my mother was beginning to repent. She awoke from her stupor of indifference and strove in every way to circumvent the plot of the two conspirators, so far as I was concerned. The strain told on her at last, and we went to California soon after my ridiculous flight from Tinkletown last winter. It was not until after that adventure that I began to see deep into the wretched soul of Tom Reddon. "Then came the most villainous part of the whole conspiracy. Reddon, knowing full well that exposure was possible at any time, urged my stepfather to have you kidnaped and hurried off to some part of the world where you could never be found. Even Reddon did not have the courage to kill you. Neither had the heart to commit actual murder. It was while we were at Colonel Randall's place that the abduction took place, you remember. Mr. Banks and Tom Reddon had engaged their men in New York. These desperadoes came to Boggs City while Tom was here to watch their operations. All the time Mr. Crow was chasing us down Reddon was laughing in his sleeve, for he knew what was to happen during the marshal's absence. You know how successfully he managed the job. It was my stepfather's fault that it did not succeed. "My mother, down in New York, driven to the last extreme, had finally turned on him and demanded that he make restitution to Rosalie Gray, as we had come to know her. Of course, there was a scene and almost a catastrophe. He was so worried over the position she was taking, that he failed to carry out his part of the plans, which were to banish Rosalie forever from this country. You were to have been taken to Paris, dear, and kept forever in one of those awful sanitoriums. They are worse than the grave. In the meantime, the delay gave Mr. Bonner a chance to rescue you from the kidnapers.