g this unknown Hiram Cleave.

Where the clews pointed now it was utterly impossible to know. If the
fact should transpire that Dorothy did, in fact, know something of the
new will made by her uncle, or if Foster knew, and no such will should
ever be produced, the aspect of the case would be dark indeed.

Not at all convinced that Theodore Robinson might not yet be found at
the bottom of the mystery, Garrison wondered where the fellow had gone
and what his departure might signify.

Israel Snow was out of town. He would not return till the morrow.
Garrison's third night was passed in the little hotel, and no word had
come from Dorothy. He had written four letters to the Eighteenth
Street address. He was worried by her silence.

On the following day Mr. Snow returned. He proved to be a stooped old
man, but he supplied a number of important facts.

In the first place he stated that Hiram Cleave had long since assumed
another name which no one in Rockdale knew. No one was acquainted with
his business or his whereabouts. The reason of the enmity between him
and John Hardy went deep enough to satisfy the most exacting mind.

Cleave, Hardy, and Scott, the inventor, had been boys together, and, in
young manhood, chums. Hardy had fallen in love with Scott's sister,
while he was still a young, romantic man. Cleave, developing an
utterly malicious and unscrupulous nature, had deceived his friend
Hardy, tried to despoil Miss Scott's very life, thereby ultimately
causing her death, and Hardy had intervened only in time to save her
from utter shame and ruin.

Then, having discovered Cleave guilty of a forgery, he had spared no
effort or expense till he landed the creature in prison out in Indiana.
Cleave had threatened his life at the time. He had long since been
liberated. His malicious resentment had never been abated, and for the
past two or three years, with Miss Scott a sad, sweet memory only, John
Hardy had lived a lonely life, constantly moving to avoid his enemy.

A friend of another friend of a third friend of Snow's, who might have
moved away, had once had a photograph of Cleave. Old Snow promised to
procure it if possible and deliver it over to Garrison, who made eager
offers to go and try to get it for himself, but without avail. He
promised to wait for the picture, and returned at last to his hotel.

A telegram was waiting for him at the desk. He almost knew what he
should find on reading it. The m