ould see that they did not want.
And she should behold the darling wish of her heart gratified at last.
For had she not ardently desired, ever since the day of Alice's betrayal
and Alice's death, to see that false betrayer punished? Caspar Brooke
would punish him, and she should be the instrument through which his
punishment had come about.

"I should like to thrash the scoundrel within an inch of his life," said
Mr. Brooke.

"There is very little time before the wedding, if you mean to do
anything before then," said Mrs. Trent, softly.

Caspar started. "Yes, that is true. I must see him to-night. H'm"--he
stopped short, oppressed by the difficulties of the situation. Had he
not better speak to Maurice Kenyon at once? But, as he recollected,
Maurice had gone out of town, and would not be back until half an hour
or so before the hour fixed for his sister's wedding. The ceremony was
to be performed at an unusually early hour--ten o'clock in the
morning--for divers reasons: one being that Ethel wanted to begin her
journey to Paris in very good time. She had never been anxious for a
fashionable wedding, and had decided to have no formal wedding
breakfast, and there was no reason for delaying the proceedings until a
later hour. But, as Mr. Brooke reflected, unless he went to Ethel Kenyon
herself there was little time in which to take action. Indeed, it seemed
to him for a moment almost better to let the past sink into oblivion,
and to hope that Oliver would be kind and faithful to the beautiful and
gifted girl who was, apparently, the choice of his heart.

But it was not to Mrs. Trent's interest that this mood should last.
"Poor Miss Kenyon!" she said, in quietly regretful tones. "I'm sorry for
her, poor young lady. No mother or father to look after her, and no
friend even who dares to tell her the truth!"

The words stung Caspar. He thought of his own daughter Lesley, placed in
Ethel's position, and he felt that he could not let Ethel go unwarned.
And yet--could he believe Oliver Trent to be such a scoundrel on the
mere strength of this woman's story! It might be all a baseless slander,
fabricated for the sake of obtaining money. And there was so little time
before poor Ethel's wedding!

While he hesitated, Mary Trent saw her opportunity, and seized it.

"If you want to see Oliver Trent," she said, "he is coming to our
lodgings this very night. I have been to Mrs. Romaine's house to ask him
to come to my husband who