, your future from this time forth is, to a great extent, in
your own hands; your life will be what you make it, and you alone.
See to it that it is not blighted by your own wrong-doing! Be
yourself a man of honor, and I will assure you, you can depend upon
me to stand by you and to help you." Walter LaGrange raised his
eyes in astonishment at these words, containing a pledge of probably
the first genuine friendship he had ever known in his young life.
He gave a look, searching, almost cynical, into Harold Mainwaring's
face; then reading nothing but sincerity, he took the proffered hand,
saying brokenly,--

"Do you really mean it? I supposed that you, of all others, would
despise me; and it would be no great wonder if you did!"

"It will depend entirely upon yourself, Walter, whether or not I
despise you. If I ever do, it will be the result of your own
unworthiness, not because of the wrong-doing of others."

There were signs in the boy's face of a brief struggle between the
old pride, inherited from his mother, and the self-respect which
Harold Mainwaring's words had but just awakened.

"If it were the other fellow," he said, slowly, "the one the old
man intended to make his heir, had made me such a proposition, I
would tell him to go to the devil; but, by George! if you will
stand by me, it's all right, and I'll be man enough anyway that
you'll never regret it."

A few days later, Walter LaGrange, penniless and friendless, had
disappeared, whither his former associates neither knew nor cared.
In a large banking establishment in one of the principal western
cities,--a branch of the firm of Mainwaring & Co.,--a young man,
known as the ward of Harold Scott Mainwaring, was entered as an
employee, with prospect of advancement should he prove himself
worthy of responsibility and trust. But of this, as of many other
events just then quietly transpiring behind the scenes, little or
nothing was known.

Meanwhile, as the days slipped rapidly away, the party at the
Waldorf was not idle. There were conferences, numerous and
protracted, behind dosed doors, telegrams and cablegrams in cipher
flashed hither and thither in multitudinous directions, while Mr.
Sutherland seemed fairly ubiquitous. Much of his time, however,
was spent in the private parlors of the English party, with frequent
journeys to the court-house to ascertain the status of the case.
From one of these trips he returned one evening jubilant.

"Well