to the low entrance, and stooping, struck a
match. The match burned well, and in an instant had communicated its own
flame to the cheap fuse that ran along the wall. In the far-off office,
concealed beneath the mill owner's desk, there was already waiting a
powerful explosive, which Fayette had purloined from the store of the
workmen who were excavating for the new wing of the building. In a
moment more the fuse would have burned unnoticed to its fatal end, and
an awful crime, of whose enormity the dull criminal had no real
comprehension, would have been committed.

But Hallam had caught the prevailing mood. He, like the others left
lingering about the silent building, had fallen into a reverie which,
judging by his bright expression, was full of happiness. For many
months, and for the first time in his life, he had kept a secret from
his father and Amy. If that can be called a secret which was known also
to Cleena, to Uncle Frederic, and to Fayette, upon whose aid alone the
success of this mystery had depended. The lad had been faithful. At most
times his help had been rendered freely, out of love and sympathy; at
others there had been compulsion on Cleena's side and from the other one
of the quartette, who had himself suffered false blame and the disgrace
of suspicion because of the secret.

"To-morrow, please God, it shall end. I couldn't bear to tell them, who
love me so, until I was sure, sure. The old surgeon said it might be a
miracle would be enacted for my benefit. Well, it has, it has! I've
known it, really, almost from the beginning, though it's been so hard
and at times so seemingly hopeless. But if I hadn't loved them even more
than myself, I wouldn't have kept on trying. To-morrow--the experiment
in their presence! Will it ever come!"

The lad stood up and arranged the papers in his own desk. Then he heard,
or fancied that he did, a slight sound in the deserted building. The
corps of operatives had been well drilled to watch for any sign of that
dreaded element, fire, and he was alert now,--the more that, following
this, there was a slight odor, pungent and more alarming than even the
first sound.

He wheeled about and--what was that? In the dimness of the angle where
it lay, away out toward that closed office with its unsuspecting
occupant, a tiny spark was making its steady, creeping progress. For an
instant Hallam gazed at it astonished, the next he realized its full
meaning and horror. Could he rea