.

"What is it you want of me?" she asked, with a feeble assumption of her
usual languid tone.

"Oh, Mrs. Swinton, it isn't true--tell me it isn't true! I can't believe
it of him."

"You are referring to Dick's trouble? Our sorrow is embittered by the
knowledge that our poor boy went away--"

Words failed her. She could not lie to this girl, whose eyes seemed to be
searching her very soul. What did she suspect?

"My father told me of the checks," said Dora. "They were made out to you.
Yet, they say he forged them. How could he? I don't understand these
things; and father's explanation didn't enlighten me at all. I loved
Dick--you know I did."

"I suspected it, Dora, and had things gone well with us, I should have
been as pleased as anybody, if the affection between you ripened--"

"Ripened!" cried Dora, with fine contempt: "He loved me, and I loved him.
We were engaged. No one was to know till he came back, but now--well,
what does it matter who knows? But those who slander him and take away
his good name must answer to me. Vivian Ormsby was always his enemy. But
you--you must have known what he was doing. He couldn't take all that
money and go away in debt, and talk as he did of having got money from
his grandfather by extortion. He told me that you'd been able to arrange
things for him."

"He told you that!" cried Mrs. Swinton, startled into revealing her
alarm.

"Yes, he told me that his grandfather had grown impossible, and that you
were the only one who could get money out of him. He said you'd got lots
of money, and that things were better for everybody at home--those were
his words. Yet, they say he altered checks. What do they mean? How could
he?"

"My dear, it is too complicated a matter for a girl like you to
understand. You must know that to discuss such a matter with me in this
time of sorrow is little less than cruel."

"Cruel? Isn't it cruel to me, too? Isn't his honor as dear to me as to
his mother? I tell you, I won't rest until he is set right before the
world. Where is Mr. Swinton? He is a man, and can make a public denial on
behalf of his son. Surely, he's not going to sit quiet, and let Mr.
Ormsby--"

"It is not Mr. Ormsby--it is his grandfather who repudiates the checks,
Dora. Don't you think that you are best advised by me, his mother? Do you
think I didn't love Dick? Do you think that, if there were any way of
refuting the charges, I should be silent? His father knows that it is
u