ed.

Trimmer was no less surprised.

"Trimmer, you can leave us," cried Mary, whose eyes were glistening with
an unusual light. There was a red patch in her cheeks, the lips were hard
set, and her hands were working nervously in her muff. "I wish to speak
to my father privately."

"If Mr. Herresford wishes--"

"I wish it. Please leave us!"

"Don't go! Don't go, Trimmer!" cried the miser extending one hand
helplessly. "Raise me, Trimmer. Don't let her touch me."

Trimmer obeyed his master, ignoring Mrs. Swinton, and lifted the old bag
of bones with a jerk that seemed to rattle it. He placed an especially
large velvet-covered cushion behind the invalid's back, straightened the
skull-cap so that the tassel should not fall over the eye; then, assuming
a stony expression of face, turned to go.

Herresford mumbled and appealed until the door was closed; then, he
seemed to recover his courage and his tongue.

"So, you're here again," he snapped. "What is it now--what is it now? Am
I never to have peace?"

"I have strange news. Dick is alive."

"Not dead, eh! Humph! That does not surprise me. I expected as much. No
man is dead in a war until his body is buried. So, he's come back, has
he?"

"Yes, and that is why I'm here. The bank people will have him arrested."

There was a pause, which the miser ended by a fit of chuckling and
choking laughter that maddened her.

"This is no laughing matter, father. Can't you see what the position
is?"

"Oh, yes, it's a pretty position--quite a dramatic situation. Boy dead,
shamefully accused; boy alive, and to be arrested for his mother's
crime."

"Father, I've thought it all out. There is only one thing to do, and you
must do it. You must pay that money to the bank, and compel them to
abandon the prosecution by declaring that you made a mistake about the
checks--that you really did authorize them."

"Add lie to lie, I suppose; and, according to your method of moral
arithmetic, make two wrongs into one right. So, you want to drag me into
it?"

"Father, if you have any natural feeling toward Dick--I don't ask you to
think of me--you'll set this matter straight by satisfying the bank
people."

"The bank people don't want to be satisfied. They've paid me my
money--there's an end to it. You must appeal to Ormsby."

"But Ormsby hates Dick. He is marrying the woman Dick loves."

"And who is that, pray?" cried the old man, starting up and snapping his
words out like pist