an is perfectly honest. I would answer for his
truth and honesty. He has frank, honest eyes. Besides, he brought me
all those letters. Well, dear, you are not going to desert me because
you are engaged, are you, Arnold? I want you to be present when she
comes to-morrow morning."

"Certainly I will be present, with the greatest--no, not the greatest
pleasure. But I will be present--I will come to luncheon, Clara."

When she was gone he thought again of the strange coincidence, both of
the man and of the inheritance. Yet what had his Iris in common with a
girl who had been brought up in America? Besides, she had lost her
inheritance, and this other Iris had crossed the ocean to receive
hers. Yet a very strange coincidence. It was so strange that he told
it to Iris and to Lala Roy. Iris laughed, and said she did not know
she had a single namesake. Lala did not laugh; but he sat thinking in
silence. There was no chess for him that night; instead of playing his
usual game, Mr. Emblem, in his chair, laughed and chuckled in rather a
ghastly way.

CHAPTER X.

"IT IS MY COUSIN."

"Well, Joe," said his wife, "and how is it going to finish? It looks
to me as if there was a prison-van and a police-court at the end.
Don't you think we had better back out of it while there is time?"

"You're a fool!" her husband replied--it was the morning after his
visit to Clara; "you know nothing about it. Now listen."

"I do nothing but listen; you've told me the story till I know it by
heart. Do you think anybody in the world will be so green as to
believe such a clumsy plan as that?"

"Now look here, Lotty; if there's another word said--mind, now--you
shall have nothing more to do with the business at all. I'll give it
to a girl I know--a clever girl, who will carry it through with flying
colors."

She set her lips hard, and drummed her fingers on the table. He knew
how to rule his wife.

"Go on," she said, "since we can't be honest."

"Be reasonable, then; that's all I ask you. Honest! who is honest?
Ain't we every one engaged in getting round our neighbors? Isn't the
whole game, all the world over, lying and deceit? Honest! you might as
well go on the boards without faking up your face, as try to live
honest. Hold your tongue, then." He growled and swore, and after his
fashion called on the Heavens to witness and express their
astonishment.

The girl bent her head, and made no reply for a space. She was cowed
and afra