"A year ago, an artist reduced to poverty, through the agency of Israel Yorke, came to my home to paint my portrait. It was Cornelius Berman. Yorke had employed Buggles as his agent in the affair of the transfer of the property of Cornelius; Buggles the agent was dead indeed, but Yorke appeared upon the scene, as the principal, and sold Cornelius out of house and home. The papers which you took from the dead body of Buggles were only copies; the originals were in the possession of Israel Yorke." Nameless hid his face in his hands. He did not speak again until many minutes had elapsed. "And you thought that Cornelius had put Buggles to death?" "I gathered it from a rumor which has crept through New York for the last two years. The haggard face and wandering eye of the dying artist, who painted my picture, confirmed this impression." "And Cornelius came to this house?"' "No; to another house, where I had been placed by my father. He procured a person to represent a southern gentleman, and personate my father. That is, I was represented as the only child of a rich southerner; and in that capacity my picture was painted, and--and--I afterward visited the home of the artist, in a miserable garret, and saw his daughter, who assisted her father, by the humblest kind of work. She was a seamstress--she worked for 'sixteen cents per day.'" "And she is dead," said Nameless, in a low voice. "I lost sight of Mary and her father about a year ago, and have since received intelligence of their death." "How did you receive this intelligence?" "It was in all the papers. Beverly Barron wrote quite a touching poem upon the Death of the Artist and his Daughter. Beverly, you are aware, was eloquent upon such occasions: the death of a friend was always a godsend to him." Nameless did not reply, but seemed for a moment to surrender himself to the influence of unalloyed despair. "Look you, Frank," he said, after a long pause, "I have seventy-one thousand dollars--" "Seventy-one thousand dollars!" she ejaculated. "Yes, and it is 'FRANK AND NAMELESS AND NINETY-ONE AGAINST THE WORLD.' To-morrow is the 24th of December; the day after will be THE DAY. We must lay our plans; we must track Martin Fulmer to his haunt; we must foil your father, and, in a word, show the world that its cunning can be baffled and its crime brought to justice, by the combination of three persons--a Fallen Woman, a Convict and a Murderer! O, does it not make your heart bound to think of the good work we can do with seventy-one thousand dollars!" She gave him her hand, quietly, but her dark eye answered the excitement which flashed from every line of his countenance. "And will it not be a glorious thing for us, if we can wash away our crimes--yes, Frank, our crimes--and show the world what virtue lurks in the breast of the abandoned and the lost?"