and he is doing at this moment what he believes will separate
us. He is a noble man, Cicely, noble as Bertram, though he once did--"
She paused. "It is for him to say what, not I," she softly concluded.

"Then Bertram is noble," Cicely timidly put in.

"Have you ever doubted it?"

"No."

And hiding their blushes on each other's shoulders, the two girls sat
breathlessly waiting, while the clock ticked away in the music-room and
the moments came and went that determined their fate. Suddenly they both
rose. Mr. Stuyvesant and Mr. Sylvester were descending the stairs. Mr.
Sylvester came in first. Walking straight up to Paula, he took her in
his arms and kissed her on the forehead.

"My betrothed wife!" he whispered.

With a start of incredulous joy, Paula looked up. His glance was clear
but strangely solemn and peaceful.

"He has heard all I had to say," added he; "he is a just man, but he is
also a merciful one. Like you he declares that not what a man was, but
what he is, determines the judgment of true men concerning him." And
taking her on his arm, he stood waiting for Mr. Stuyvesant who now came
in.

"Where is my daughter?" were that gentleman's words, as he closed the
door behind him.

"Here, papa."

He held out his hand, and she sprang towards him. "Cicely," said he, not
without some tokens of emotion in his voice, "it is only right that I
should inform you that we were all laboring under a mistake, in charging
Mr. Bertram Sylvester with the words that were uttered in the Dey Street
coffee-house two years ago. Mr. Sylvester has amply convinced me that
his nephew neither was, nor could have been present there at that time.
It must have been some other man, of similar personality."

"Oh thank you, thank you!" Cicely's look seemed to say to Mr. Sylvester.
"And he is quite freed from reproach?" she asked, with a smiling glance
into her father's face.

A hesitancy in Mr. Stuyvesant's manner, struck with a chill upon more
than one heart in that room.

"Yes," he admitted at last; "the mere fact that a mysterious robbery has
been committed upon certain effects in the bank of which he is cashier,
is not sufficient to awaken distrust as to his integrity, but--"

At that moment the door-bell rung.

"Your father would say," cried Mr. Sylvester, taking advantage of the
momentary break, to come to the relief of his host, "that my nephew is
too much of a gentleman to desire to press any claim he may imagine
hi