Mr. Gridley!
I am in the power of a dreadful man--"

"You mean Mr. William Murray Bradshaw?"

"I mean him."

"Has there not been some understanding between you that he should become
the approved suitor of Miss Myrtle Hazard?"

Cynthia wrung her hands and rocked herself backward and forward in her
misery, but answered not a word. What could she answer, if she had
plotted with this "dreadful man" against a young and innocent girl, to
deliver her over into his hands, at the risk of all her earthly hopes and
happiness?

Master Gridley waited long and patiently for any answer she might have
the force to make. As she made none, he took upon himself to settle the
whole matter without further torture of his helpless victim.

"This package must go into the hands of the parties who had the
settlement of the estate of the late Malachi Withers. Mr. Penhallow is
the survivor of the two gentlemen to whom that business was intrusted.
How long is Mr. William Murray Bradshaw like to be away?"

"Perhaps a few days,--perhaps weeks,--and then he will come back and kill
me,--or--or--worse! Don't take that paper, Mr. Gridley,--he isn't like
you! you would n't--but he would--he would send me to everlasting misery
to gain his own end, or to save himself. And yet he is n't every way
bad, and if he did marry Myrtle she'd think there never was such a
man,--for he can talk her heart out of her, and the wicked in him lies
very deep and won't ever come out, perhaps, if the world goes right with
him." The last part of this sentence showed how Cynthia talked with her
own conscience; all her mental and moral machinery lay open before the
calm eyes of Master Byles Gridley.

His thoughts wandered a moment from the business before him; he had just
got a new study of human nature, which in spite of himself would be
shaping itself into an axiom for an imagined new edition of "Thoughts on
the Universe," something like this, "The greatest saint may be a sinner
that never got down to "hard pan." It was not the time to be framing
axioms.

"Poh! poh!" he said to himself; "what are you about making phrases, when
you have got a piece of work like this in hand?" Then to Cynthia, with
great gentleness and kindness of manner: "Have no fear about any
consequences to yourself. Mr. Penhallow must see that paper--I mean
those papers. You shall not be a loser nor a sufferer if you do your
duty now in these premises."

Master Gridley, treating her,