“I believe that the wisest plan for you is to remain satisfied with the jury’s verdict given long ago in your mother’s case. That verdict declared her innocent, or, at least, gave her the benefit of a doubt. But should you investigate too closely it might result in her conviction. She is dead, so it cannot harm her, only to blacken her memory still deeper. All the obloquy would fall on you, her helpless orphan child. Knowing this to be true, and feeling the sincerest friendship for you, I must refuse to assist you in your own destruction. “I advise you earnestly to let the whole matter drop, and devote your mind to other things more suitable and natural to a young girl than this morbid state of feeling. “I have spoken to my wife about you. She is deeply interested, and will call upon you to-morrow to request you to become our guest for a while. I hope that you will consent to do so. We will do all in our power to further your comfort and your pleasure. “Cordially your friend, MARK L. GARDNER.” A moan of the cruelest disappointment came from Italy’s pale lips, and she tore the lawyer’s letter into fragments and trampled it beneath her feet. “Thus do I scorn his advice,” she thought bitterly, and she resolved that on the morrow she would seek a good lawyer and employ his services. She scorned the idea that investigation would fix the crime either upon her mother or Francis Murray. Her heart spoke loudly for the man who had been so kind to her, and whose thrilling words rang in her memory night and day: “Italy, love, darling!” “He loved me--loved me in spite of my suspicions of him. He was grand and noble--he could love me in spite of all my wilfulness and my scorn of him! Ah, but I must forget all that! My heart owned him for its master. Oh, God, send him back to me that I may tell him how I wronged him, and that I love him now and pray for his pardon!” sobbed Italy, in an abandonment of bitter grief. Ah, how cruel it is to love with all one’s heart some dear object that is removed from us by all the breadth of earth and heaven, how cruel when the heart swells with love that can never be uttered, when the yearning arms fall listless, empty of caresses. Italy wept bitterly that Francis Murray was dead, for now she knew that she loved him with her whole heart, that to him had been given the devotion Emmett Harlow had prayed for in vain. Alas! she would almost have been willing to die rather than face the hour that was hastening on so fast with its agony of keen despair. But even as she wept in her desolation there was coming up the steps a woman warmly wrapped from the cold of the autumn night in heavy furs and shawls. She rang the bell, and asked for Miss Vale. “Miss Vale is very sick with a neuralgic attack. I do not believe she will be willing to see you, so if you have any message send it by me,” replied Mrs. Mays, mindful of the fate of the office-boy.