ult feat, and I
shall have to see it done before I can be convinced that it can be
accomplished," he replied, icily, adding: "There are many women in this
world who would stand back and watch such a proceeding with the wildest
anxiety, I imagine;" this sneeringly.

"You shall never marry Iris Vincent!" Dorothy panted. "I--I would
prevent it at any cost. Once before you forsook me when I needed you
most; you left me to die when I fell from the steamer down into
the dark water, when we were returning from Staten Island, that
never-to-be-forgotten night; so why should I be surprised at your
willingness to desert me now?"

He turned on his heel.

"It is now two o'clock in the morning," he said. "My duty requires me to
go down to the ball-room and bid the guests adieu as they take their
departure, and when that is over I shall leave this house until this
difficulty has been settled. The reading of Doctor Bryan's will is to
take place at noon. I shall be present then, and after that--well--well,
we shall see what will take place."

With these words Kendal quitted the room, and left Dorothy standing
there with the tears falling like rain down her cheeks--surely the most
piteous object in the whole wide world.

When Kendal found himself alone his intense anger against Dorothy began
to cool a little.

"It is true she attempted to do a horrible deed," he muttered; "but I
must not forget that love for me prompted her to it, and show her _some_
mercy."

After all the guests had taken their departure, and the house had
settled down into the darkness and quiet of the waning night, Kendal
paced his room in a greatly perturbed state of mind, thinking the matter
over.

He was terribly in love with Iris, he admitted to himself; but he had
done wrong, fearfully wrong, in breaking off his engagement with Dorothy
until after the reading of the will. Iris was beautiful, bewitching--his
idea of all that a proud, imperious, willful sweetheart should be--but
Dorothy would have what was much better than all this, the golden
shekels; and then, too, now that the girl was no longer blind, she would
have plenty of admirers; and he could have cursed himself for those
hasty words, that no longer should she live under the same roof with
himself.

It was daylight when he threw himself down on the bed, fairly worn out;
and his head no sooner touched the pillow than he fell into a deep
sleep, and it was almost noon ere he opened his eyes agai