his horse first, and his daughter afterward."

"You don't mean to say that he suspects Mr. Duffel of such crimes?"

"No; he judges a thousand times better man than Duffel; for, between you
and me, I have my doubts about this Duffel. I have seen him on two
different occasions in company with a couple of, to say the least, very
suspicious looking characters."

"You don't say so!"

"Yes; and what is more, he was evidently on good terms with them, though he
did not appear to wish me to think so, and passed the matter off
indifferently. I might not have thought so much of the circumstance were it
not for the fact that he does not attend to business at all, and yet lives
in a better style and more extravagantly than any other young man in the
country. I tell you a man can't live these times, and spend money as he
does, without having an income much greater than his."

"Perhaps he is making inroads on his capital."

"That may be, too, though I do not know that it is the case; but I _do_
know that he is absent from home much of the time, occasionally for days
together, and nobody can tell where he is."

"I have noticed the fact of his absence myself."

"Mr. Mandeville was here to-day, and gave me a history of his troubles. It
appears that this Duffel was in love with his daughter--or, as _I_ suppose,
with his money--and had proposed to him for her hand, which he was willing
to bestow, but the daughter was not. She had placed her affections upon
another, and, in my belief, a far worthier object, and to the importunities
of both her father and Duffel, she gave a firm and constant refusal. The
parent forbid her favorite the house, and he believes that it was through
his persuasions that Eveline left her home, of which you, of course, have
heard."

"Why, yes, I heard the fact, but none of the particulars."

"Well there are no particulars, except that Mr. Mandeville found a couple
of notes, purporting to be from her lover, one addressed to herself and the
other to him, in the former of which he persuades her to meet him at a
certain place, and in the latter informs the parent of their elopement and
asks forgiveness. Now it strikes me that these notes or letters were
placed there by design, and that they are both forgeries. I know the
hand-writing of the young man he accuses, and though the manuscript of the
two letters is a very good imitation of his, yet it is not the same.
Beside, I do not believe him capable of such an