“Biddy Roan,” he read on the sign. “The old dear lives here,” said he out loud. “Oh, I know she will be glad to see me again after all these years for my mother’s sake, if not for my own.” Then he knocked at the door. “Who is there, do you suppose, Tom?” asked Nellie softly; “it is late for any one to come for boats.” “Yes, but we will soon find out.” He went to the door, and opened it, when a man stepped in, but halted as he saw a beautiful girl standing there. “Does Biddy Roan live here?” asked the stranger. “Yes.” “Well, may I see her? Tell her an old friend has come back from abroad and wants to see her. Will you tell her, cove?” “Let me,” whispered Nellie, and she went to the bedroom door. But before she opened it she heard an ejaculation from Tom’s lips. The stranger was staring at her lover with a crafty expression in his eyes, while Tom was looking like death. She did not say a word to Biddy, but ran back to Tom. “What is it? Do you know this man, dear Tom?” “I once knew him, Nellie,” said Tom, eyeing his former companion with an expression of hatred. Had not this same sneaky fellow almost killed his darling? Had he not taken the dainty child fresh from its mother’s bosom and thrown it into the water? “Tom Cooper!” he was heard to mutter. “Yes, I am Tom Cooper, and you are----” “Jim Farren. Don’t bother to wake Biddy to-night, but tell her her cousin called to see her, a cousin on our mother’s side.” With this he gave a horrid laugh and sped out of the door, and Tom sank down upon a seat, and his heart felt in his bosom like a lump of lead. “Who is that man?” asked Nellie pointedly. “He is the man who threw you from the boat, and, Nellie, if he should come to-morrow while I am away and they ask you to go with them, would you go? I knew he recognized you, for he looked hard at the locket on your neck. He tried to steal it from you that night in the river.” Helen Standish showed her force of character as she took Tom’s large head in her hands and kissed him. “I would no more think of leaving you, Tom, than I would to leave Biddy, nor half as quick, for you are going to be my husband, are you not?” “Oh, Nellie, those words make me so happy, but what if they should offer you a great fortune?” “Without you, my darling, I would not take it, for I want only this little family circle. Don’t worry about that, you cannot get rid of your sweetheart so easy.” “God forbid that anything like that should ever happen.” Then they left each other, and little Nellie, with a happy, singing heart, crawled in beside Biddy. But not so with Tom Cooper. He could see close to him a great shadow rising before him, and could feel the shiver of the cold bracelets about his hands. Of course, this fiend would tell George Benson where he was, and what would there be left for him but to finish out a term in prison, but there was a possibility that Biddy would know some way out of the trouble.