not see it."

The widow gazed at the young man for one searching moment, reddened
slightly, and, rising, proceeded to the music rack, from which she
extracted bosoms Nos. 2 and 3.

"Suppose we read the story," was her reply.

As the widow extended the bosoms toward him, Dennis could not avoid the
thought which had presented itself to him on the day before, that this
woman had not only two bosoms of his in her possession, but his heart as
well; and a certain degree of the animation of this reflection found its
way into his eyes.

"Well," inquired this observing woman, "what is it?"

Dennis flushed as he replied: "I'll tell you by-and-by," and added:
"Will you do me a great favor?"

"What is it?" she asked.

"Why," answered Dennis, "I would like to hear you read bosom No. 2."

"Why?"

"Well," replied the young man, with a sincerity that was unmistakable,
"I think it would sound like a song then."

"Very well," she assented, "let me have it"; and with a voice that
reflected, to this young man's ears, at least, at one moment the
rippling of silver brooks, the trill of woodbirds, the sigh of zephyrs
scented with daffodils, and the next the full, round resonance of an
animated day in June, she read:

* * * * *

"Now!" exclaimed Gratz as the familiar click assured him that the
handcuffs were in place, "now you can lower your hands and come over
here."

As the Sepoy advanced into the light, Gratz instructed Robert to pick up
the remaining coins and restore them to the bag.

During all this time the Sepoy had not uttered a word, but his fierce
eyes, which stared with savage intentness in the direction of the disk
of light, from the rear of which issued that implacable voice, were
vital with rage and impotent menace.

As he gazed thus with his distorted countenance concentrated into a look
of bitter speculation in his futile attempt to discover by whom he was
addressed in this tone of insolent authority, there was something
frightful in the quest and uncertainty of the disturbed features.

An unnatural luster, partly the reflection of his somber eyes and partly
from the tawny hue of his saturnine visage, added an inexpressible
degree of malignant rancor to his expression.

His hands, which he was compelled by the manacles to hold directly in
front of him in an absurd travesty of penitential clasp, gripped each
other in his consuming resentment until the tendons of his