ay. Would his follow? Would I
find his attitude changed?

Ah! the long delayed flash has come and gone. He is standing there yet,
but no longer in an attitude of contemplation. On the contrary, he is
bending over the waters searching with eager aspect, where so many had
searched before him, and, in the instant, as his face and form leaped
into sight, I beheld his clenched right hand fall on his breast and
heard on his lips the one word--

"Guilty!"

XVI

"AN ALL-CONQUERING BEAUTY"

I was one of the first to procure and read a New York paper next
morning. Would I discover in the columns any hint of the preceding day's
events in Yonkers, which, if known, must for ever upset the wagon
theory? No, that secret was still my secret, only shared by the doctor,
who, so far as I understood him, had no intention of breaking his
self-imposed silence till his fears of some disaster to the little one
had received confirmation. I had therefore several hours before me yet
for free work.

The first thing I did was to hunt up Miss Graham.

She met me with eagerness; an eagerness I found it difficult to dispel
with my disappointing news in regard to Doctor Pool.

"He is not the man," said I. "Can you think of any other?"

She shook her head, her large gray eyes showing astonishment and what I
felt bound to regard as an honest bewilderment.

"I wish to mention a name," said I.

"One I know?" she asked.

"Yes."

"I know of no other person capable of wronging that child."

"You are probably right. But there is a gentleman--one interested in the
family--a man with something to gain--"

"Mr. Rathbone? You must not mention him in any such connection. He is
one of the best men I know--kind, good, and oh, so sensitive! A dozen
fortunes wouldn't tempt a man of his stamp to do any one living a wrong,
let alone a little innocent child."

"I know; but there are other temptations greater than money to some men;
infinitely greater to one as sensitive as you say he is. What if he
loved a woman! What if his only hope of winning her--"

"You must not think that of him," she again interposed. "Nothing could
make a villain of _him_. I have seen him too many times in circumstances
which show a man's character. He is good through and through, and in all
that concerns Gwendolen, honorable to the core. I once saw him save her
life at the risk of his own."

"You did? When? Years ago?"

"No, lately; within the last year."

"Tel