conquerable hatred; and with strange,
foreboding dread she looked into the future, knowing that forgiveness was
no part of his nature; that insult or injury was never forgotten.

CHAPTER III

THE MISSING WATCH

Whether the general rule of implicit obedience to parental injunction
admitted of no exceptions, was a problem which Irene readily solved; and on
Saturday, as soon as her father and cousin had started to the plantation
(twenty-five miles distant), she put on her hat, and walked to town.
Wholly absorbed in philanthropic schemes, she hurried along the sidewalk,
ran up a flight of steps, and knocked at a door, on which was written in
large gilt letters "Dr. Arnold."

"Ah, Beauty! come in. Sit down, and tell me what brought you to town so
early."

He was probably a man of fifty; gruff in appearance, and unmistakably a
bachelor. His thick hair was grizzled, so was the heavy beard; and the
shaggy grey eyebrows slowly unbent, as he took his visitor's little hands
and looked kindly down into her grave face. From her infancy he had petted
and fondled her and she stood as little in awe of him as of Paragon.

"Doctor, are you busy this morning?"

"I am never too busy to attend to you, little one. What is it?"

"Of course you know that Mrs. Aubrey is almost blind."

"Of course I do, having been her physician."

"Those cataracts can be removed, however."

"Perhaps they can, and perhaps they can't."

"But the probabilities are that a good oculist can relieve her."

"I rather think so."

"Two hundred dollars would defray all the expenses of a trip to New Orleans
for this purpose, but she is too poor to afford it."

"Decidedly too poor."

His grey eyes twinkled promisingly, but he would not anticipate her.

"Dr. Arnold, don't you think you could spare that small sum without much
inconvenience?"

"Really! is that what you trudged into town for?"

"Yes. I have not the necessary amount at my disposal just now, and I came
to ask you to lend it to me."

"Do you want the money now?"

"Yes, if you please; but before you give it to me I ought to tell you that
I want the matter kept secret. No one is to know anything about it--not
even my father."

She looked so unembarrassed that for a moment he felt puzzled.

"I knew Mrs. Aubrey before her marriage." He bent forward to watch the
effect of his words, but if she really knew or suspected aught of the past
there was not the slightest intimation of it. P