uck to Jonah when he got mixed up with the whale's
internals.' And then, just as he finished, the bolt fell. The doctor
came in from the next room and took him aside. Your mother was dead."

A sob broke from the listening girl, a great sob of sympathy for the
kindly, weak, irresponsible father she had never known.

"Your father's disaster looked like my blessing. I had no regrets for
the woman," Mercy went on. "He was mine now by every right. The thief
had come by her reckoning. So I seized the opportunity that was thrust
in my way. Mine was the right to care for him and help him in his
trouble, nor have I shame in saying that I took it.

"But the curse of your life was working full and sure. But for your
existence I should never have taken that step. But for that step other
matters would never have occurred. When your father's--friend
discovered what I had done his fury knew no bounds. His insults were
unforgettable--at least by me. But I persisted. For a great hope was
at work within me that now your mother was gone eventually Charles
Stanmore might come back to his allegiance, and I might step into her
place. It was a foolish hope, but--I loved your father.

"Bah!" she went on impatiently. "It is no use raking amongst those
ashes. The details don't matter to you. Those things are dead. And
only is their effect alive to-day. My hopes were never to be
fulfilled. How should they be with the curse of your father's golden
girl involving us all in disaster. Let me cut the wretched history as
short as I can. At first money was plentiful enough, and luck in that
direction seemed to border on the marvelous. To give you an instance
your father--imbecile that he was--swore he would test it in your own
interests. He hunted round till he found the most hair-brained,
wildcat company ever floated for the purpose of robbing moneyed fools,
and invested ten thousand dollars in it as a life-dowry for you. It
was the joke of all his gambling friends. It was like pitching dollar
bills into the Hudson. And then in a month the miraculous happened.
After a struggle the company boomed, and you were left with a
competence for life. Yes, at first money was plentiful enough, but
your father never got over his shock of your mother's death. Sometimes
I used to think his brain was weakening. Anyway, he plunged into a
wild vortex of gambling. He drank heavily, and indulged himself in
excesses from which he had always kept clear up to that time.