ardlaw, raging with jealousy at the absent Penfold, as heretofore
Penfold had raged at him, heaved a deep sigh and hurried away, while
Helen was locking up the prayer-book in her desk. By this means he
retained Helen's pity.

He went home directly, mounted to his bedroom, unlocked a safe, and
plunged his hand into it. His hand encountered a book; he drew it out
with a shiver and gazed at it with terror and amazement.

It was the prayer-book he had picked up in the Square and locked up in
that safe. Yet that very prayer-book had been restored to Helen before
his eyes, and was now locked up in her desk. He sat down with the book in
his hand, and a great dread came over him.

Hitherto Candor and Credulity only had been opposed to him, but now
Cunning had entered the field against him; a master hand was co-operating
with Helen.

Yet, strange to say, she seemed unconscious of that co-operation. Had
Robert Penfold found his way home by some strange means? Was he watching
over her in secret?

He had the woman he loved watched night and day, but no Robert Penfold
was detected.

He puzzled his brain night and day, and at last he conceived a plan of
deceit which is common enough in the East, where lying is one of the fine
arts, but was new in this country, we believe, and we hope to Heaven we
shall not be the means of importing it.

An old clerk of his father's, now superannuated and pensioned off, had a
son upon the stage, in a very mean position. Once a year, however, and of
course in the dogdays, he had a kind of benefit at his suburban theater;
that is to say, the manager allowed him to sell tickets, and take half
the price of them. He persuaded Arthur to take some, and even to go to
the theater for an hour. The man played a little part, of a pompous
sneak, with some approach to Nature. He seemed at home.

Arthur found this man out; visited him at his own place. He was very
poor, and mingled pomposity with obsequiousness, so that Arthur felt
convinced he was to be bought, body and soul, what there was of him.

He sounded him accordingly, and the result was that the man agreed to
perform a part for him.

Arthur wrote it, and they rehearsed it together. As to the dialogue, that
was so constructed that it could be varied considerably according to the
cues, which could be foreseen to a certain extent; but not precisely,
since they were to be given by Helen Rolleston, who was not in the
secret.

But while this plot w