nctively all that it portended. Jasper followed her.

The girl, who had been watching Frank, shifted her eyes for a moment to
the visitors, and at sight of Jasper flung across the room. In an
instant her brother's arms were around her, and she was sobbing on his
breast.

"Am I entitled to ask what all this means?" asked Frank quietly. "I am
sure you will overlook my natural irritation, but I have suffered so
much and I have been the victim of so many surprises that I do not feel
inclined to accept all the shocks which fate sends me in a spirit of
joyful resignation. Perhaps you will be good enough to elucidate this
new mystery. Is everybody mad--or am I the sole sufferer?"

"There is no mystery about it," said Jasper, still holding the girl. "I
think you know this lady?"

"I have never met her before in my life," said Frank, "but she persists
in regarding me as her husband for some reason. Is this a new scheme of
yours, Jasper?"

"I think you know this lady," said Jasper Cole again.

Frank shrugged his shoulders.

"You are almost monotonous. I repeat that I have never seen her before."

"Then I will explain to you," said Jasper.

He put the girl gently from him for a moment, and turned and whispered
something to May. Together they passed out of the room.

"You were confidential secretary to John Minute for some time, Merrill,
and in that capacity you made several discoveries. The most remarkable
discovery was made when Sergeant Smith came to blackmail my father. Oh,
don't pretend you didn't know that John Minute was my father!" he said
in answer to the look of amazement on Frank Merrill's face.

"Smith took you into his confidence, and you married his alleged
daughter. John Minute discovered this fact, not that he was aware that
it was his own daughter, or that he thought that your association with
my sister was any more than an intrigue beneath the dignity of his
nephew. You did not think the time was ripe to spring a son-in-law upon
him, and so you waited until you had seen his will. In that will he made
no mention of a daughter, because the child had been born after his wife
had left him, and he refused to recognize his paternity.

"Later, in some doubt as to whether he was doing an injustice to what
might have been his own child, he endeavored to find her. Had you known
of those investigations, you could have helped considerably, but as it
happened you did not. You married her because you thought you wo