terwards. There will be time enough."

"The time is to-day," rejoined Boriskoff, firmly, "Alban Kennedy will
live under your roof as your own son. I have considered the matter and
am determined upon it. When the time comes for him to marry my
daughter, I will inform you of it. Understand, he knows nothing of your
story or of mine. He will not hear of me in my absence from England. I
leave the burden of this to you. He is a proud lad and will accept no
charity. It must be your task to convince him that he has a title to
your benevolence. Be wise and act discreetly. Our future requisitions
will depend upon your conduct of this affair--and God help you, Maxim
Gogol, if you fail in it."

Something of the fanatic, almost of the madman, spoke in this vehement
utterance. If Gessner had been utterly at a loss as yet to account for a
request so unusual, he now began to perceive in it the instrument of his
own humiliation. Would not this stranger be a perpetual witness to the
hazard of his life, a son who stood also as a hostage, the living voice
of Paul Boriskoff's authority? And what of his own daughter Anna and of
the story he must tell her? These facts he realized clearly but had no
answer to them. The reluctant assent, wrung from his unwilling lips, was
the promise of a man who stood upon the brink of ruin and must answer as
his accusers wished or pay the ultimate penalty. All his common
masterfulness, the habit of autocracy, the anger of the bully and the
tyrant, trembled before the clear cold eyes of this man he had wronged.
He must answer or pay the price, humiliate himself or suffer.

* * * * *

And to-night Alban Kennedy slept beneath his roof; the bargain had been
clinched, the word spoken. Twenty thousand pounds had he paid to Paul
Boriskoff that morning for the education of his daughter and in part
satisfaction of the ancient claim. But the witness of his degradation
had come to him and must remain.

Aye, and there the strife of it began. When he put detectives upon the
lad's path, had him followed from Union Street to the caves and from the
caves to his place of employment, the report came to him that he was
interesting himself in a callous ne'er-do-well, the friend of rogues and
vagabonds, the companion of sluts, the despair of the firm which
employed him. He had expected something of the kind, but the seeming
truth dismayed him. In a second interview with Boriskoff he used all hi