and repulsion in the girl's eyes made the blood rise to
her companion's temples.

He pointed to her chair. "Sit down," he said. "You don't understand
yet."

She obeyed trembling, for she could scarcely stand. His unmoved
certainty was terrifying. "Your father was a very popular man. His
vanity was his undoing. Juliet was too smart to let him throw away her
money, so rather than lose his reputation as a good sport, rather than
not keep up his end, he looked elsewhere for the needful, and he came to
me, not once, but many times. At last he wore out my patience and the
Carder spring ran dry, so far as he was concerned; then, Geraldine"--the
narrator paused, the girl's dilated eyes were fixed upon him--"then, my
proud little lady, handsome Dick Melody fell. He began helping himself."

"What do you mean--helping himself?" The girl leaned forward and her
hands tightened until the nails pressed into her flesh.

Rufus Carder slipped his fingers into an inside pocket and drew forth
two checks which he held in such a way that she could read them.

"You don't know my signature," he went on, "but that is it. Large as
life and twice as natural. Yes"--he regarded the checks--"twice as
natural. I couldn't have done them better myself."

Geraldine's hands flew to her heart, her eyes spoke an anguished
question.

"Yes," Rufus nodded, "Dick did those." The speaker paused and slipped
the checks back into his pocket. "I breathed fire when I discovered it,
and then very strangely something occurred which put the fire out."
Again he leaned his elbows on the chair-arms, and bent toward the wide
eyes and parted lips opposite. "I saw you sitting in the park one day,"
he went on slowly, "you got up and walked and laughed with a girl
companion. I found out who you were. I went to your father, who was
nearly crazy with apprehension at the time, and I told him there was no
girl on earth for me but you, and that if he would give you to me I
would forgive his crime. I didn't want a forger for a father-in-law. It
was arranged that this month he should bring you out here and make his
wishes known. His reputation was safe. Even Juliet suspected nothing. He
is still mourned at his clubs as the prince of good fellows; but his
sudden death prevented him from puttin' your hand in mine."

A silence followed, broken only by the rasping of the lawn-mower and
Rufus Carder watched the girl's heaving breast.

"So you see," he went on at last, "all you h