m them. But a citizen of a great town like
this, owes something to his fellows, and submitting to blackmail is but
a poor precedent to set. You will have to proceed as you will, Mr. Holt;
neither my nephew nor myself, have any money to give you."

The glare in the man's eyes was like that of an aroused tiger. "Do you
mean to say," cried he, "that you will not give from your abundance, a
paltry thousand dollars to save one of your blood from a suspicion that
will never leave him, _never leave him_ to the end of his miserable
days?"

"I mean to say that not one cent will pass from me to you in payment of
a silence, which as a gentleman, you ought to feel it incumbent upon you
to preserve unasked, if only to prove to your fellow-men that you have
not entirely lost all the instincts of the caste to which you once
belonged. Not that I look for anything so disinterested from you," he
went on. "A man who could enter the home of a respectable gentleman, and
under cover of a brotherly regard, lure into degradation and despair,
the woman who was at once its ornament and pride, cannot be expected to
practice the virtues of ordinary manhood, much less those of a gentleman
and a Christian. He is a wretch, who, whatever his breeding or
antecedents, is open to nothing but execration and contempt."

With an oath and a quick backward spring, Roger Holt cried out, "Who are
you, and by what right do you come here to reproach me with a matter
dead and buried, by heaven, a dozen years ago?"

"The right of one who, though a stranger, knows well what you are and
what you have done. Colonel Japha himself is dead, but the avenger of
his honor yet lives! Roger Holt, _where is Jacqueline Japha_?"

The force with which this was uttered, seemed to confound the man. For a
moment he stood silent, his eye upon his guest, then a subtle change
took place in his expression; he smiled with a slow devilish meaning,
and tossing his head with an airy gesture, lightly remarked:

"You must ask some more constant lover than I. A woman who was charming
ten years ago--Bah! what would I be likely to know about her now!"

"Everything, when that woman is Jacqueline Japha," cried Mr. Sylvester,
advancing upon him with a look that would have shaken most men, but
which only made the eye of this one burn more eagerly. "Though you might
easily wish to give her the slip, she is not one to forget you. If she
is alive, you know where she is; speak then, and let the wo