bell, and inquired if Mr.
Trover had returned.

The waiter said, "No."

"Why do you ask?" said the doctor. "It just occurred to me that he
might have seen us as we drove up. He knows the Colonel and myself
well."

"And you suspect that he is off, Alfred?"

"It is not so very unlikely."

"Let us down to the cottage, then, and learn this at once," said
Quackinboss; "I 'd be sore riled if he was to slip his cable while we
thought him hard aground."

"Yes," said the doctor. "We need not necessarily go and ask for him;
Winthrop can just drop in to say a 'good-evening,' while we wait
outside."

"I wish you had chosen a craftier messenger," said Winthrop, laughing.
And now, taking their hats, they set out for the Gebhardts-Berg.

Alfred contrived to slip his arm within that of Quackinboss, and while
the others went on in front, he sauntered slowly after with the Colonel.
He had been anxiously waiting for a moment when they could talk
together, and for some days back it had not been possible. If the others
were entirely absorbed in the pursuit of those who had planned this
scheme of fraud, Alfred had but one thought,--and that was Clara. It was
not as the great heiress he regarded her, not as the owner of a vast
property, all at her own disposal; he thought of the sad story that
awaited her,--the terrible revelation of her father's death, and the
scarcely less harrowing history of her who had supplied the place of
mother to her. "She will have to learn all this," thought he, "and at
the moment that she hears herself called rich and independent, she will
have to hear of the open shame and punishment of one who, whatever the
relations between them, had called her her child, and assumed to treat
her as her own."

To make known all these to Quackinboss, and to induce him, if he could,
to regard them in the same light that they appeared to himself, was
young Layton's object. Withoat any preface he told all his fears and
anxieties. He pictured the condition of a young girl entering life
alone, heralded by a scandal that would soon spread over all Europe.
Would not any poverty with obscurity be better than fortune on such
conditions? Of what avail could wealth be, when every employment of
it would bring up an odious history? and lastly, how reconcile Clara
herself to the enjoyment of her good fortune, if it came associated
with the bitter memory of others in suffering and in durance? If he knew
anything of Clara's heart