"I will not go," she cried, "If that man touches me," and she pointed to Frank, "I'll scream." Again came the tap at the door, and Frank looked round. "More visitors?" he asked. "It is all right," said Saul Arthur Mann. "There's a lady and a gentleman to see me, isn't there?" he asked the commissionaire. "Show them in." May came first, saw the little tableau, and stopped, knowing instinctively all that it portended. Jasper followed her. The girl, who had been watching Frank, shifted her eyes for a moment to the visitors, and at sight of Jasper flung across the room. In an instant her brother's arms were around her, and she was sobbing on his breast. "Am I entitled to ask what all this means?" asked Frank quietly. "I am sure you will overlook my natural irritation, but I have suffered so much and I have been the victim of so many surprises that I do not feel inclined to accept all the shocks which fate sends me in a spirit of joyful resignation. Perhaps you will be good enough to elucidate this new mystery. Is everybody mad--or am I the sole sufferer?" "There is no mystery about it," said Jasper, still holding the girl. "I think you know this lady?" "I have never met her before in my life," said Frank, "but she persists in regarding me as her husband for some reason. Is this a new scheme of yours, Jasper?" "I think you know this lady," said Jasper Cole again. Frank shrugged his shoulders. "You are almost monotonous. I repeat that I have never seen her before." "Then I will explain to you," said Jasper. He put the girl gently from him for a moment, and turned and whispered something to May. Together they passed out of the room. "You were confidential secretary to John Minute for some time, Merrill, and in that capacity you made several discoveries. The most remarkable discovery was made when Sergeant Smith came to blackmail my father. Oh, don't pretend you didn't know that John Minute was my father!" he said in answer to the look of amazement on Frank Merrill's face. "Smith took you into his confidence, and you married his alleged daughter. John Minute discovered this fact, not that he was aware that it was his own daughter, or that he thought that your association with my sister was any more than an intrigue beneath the dignity of his nephew. You did not think the time was ripe to spring a son-in-law upon him, and so you waited until you had seen his will. In that will he made no mention of a daughter, because the child had been born after his wife had left him, and he refused to recognize his paternity.