Mr. North was only a clerk, but he was inordinately proud and ambitious, and his face darkened with anger as he returned brusquely: “I want a few words with you, young man. My wife tells me that you have been paying some attention to my daughter Kate?” “Ye-es, Mr. North,” Willie stammered, with a boyish flush, adding anxiously: “I trust you have no objection to my love for her?” “Nonsense! You are nothing but a boy,” replied Mr. North curtly, and the handsome young face before him deepened in color at the taunt; but he answered, in a manly way: “I am almost twenty, and my stepfather has promised to give me a partnership in the store when I am twenty-one. My prospects are fair.” “I care nothing for your prospects! It is your family I object to,” was the brusque, startling reply. Then, as if ashamed of the taunt, Mr. North went on, more gently: “I am sorry to wound your feelings, Willie; I believe you are a good boy, in the main, although it was said at one time that you were dissipated and wild. Still, you had an excuse for that--the same excuse that I have in forbidding your attentions to my daughter.” “Mr. North!” “I said that I forbade any more attentions to Kate. When she marries, it must be one with a stainless family record. Your sister’s fault has disgraced her family, and may do so even more terribly, for there are many who doubt that she was ever drowned, and she may reappear at any time.” “Mr. North, are there any grounds for this belief?” the poor fellow asked hoarsely. “A face like hers has been seen several times in Richmond lately. Some of the factory girls believe that they saw her yesterday as they came from work. She is always richly dressed, and it must be that she is leading a life of gilded shame in this city.” A hoarse groan came from the stricken young man’s lips; then, with flashing eyes, he exclaimed: “Then she is running a terrible risk, for only let me find her, and I will send a bullet crashing through her shameless heart!” “No, no!” the gentleman exclaimed, recoiling in dismay, but Willie Laurens angrily reiterated his threat. “You will see,” he said. “She wrecked my life, and I will wipe out the family disgrace in her heart’s blood.” “You are mad, simply mad! Would you become your sister’s murderer, and break your poor mother’s heart?” cried Mr. North, shocked and pained by his furious mood, and not dreaming of the fiery fluid that had inflamed the young man’s blood. He turned away from the reckless boy, and was going abruptly out of the store when a horseman drew rein on the pavement before him, and asked excitedly: “Does the mother of Miss Alice Laurens live here?” “Yes; is there anything wrong?” inquired Mr. North curiously, and at the same moment the pale, agitated face of Willie Laurens appeared in the doorway, and he said: “I am the brother of Alice Laurens. What is wrong?” The man looked at him with pitying eyes, and answered: