eriously it had been found, and by Jack's old sweetheart,
Dorothy Glenn.

"Then the child she had here was not her own?" cried Jack, white as
death.

And as the whole story began to dawn upon him, Jack buried his fair,
handsome, haggard face in his hands, and wept for joy.

But when his partner touched upon the subject of Dorothy's being accused
of poisoning Miss Staples, he sprang up hastily and grasped the other's
hand.

"The accusation was not true," cried Jack. "Dorothy was not guilty. A
girl whom Jessie had known for years, and who was at her bedside, did
the deed. She wrote a full confession. I found it under my plate at the
dinner-table. Nadine Holt has fled to escape just punishment. Oh, how I
wish I could find poor, abused Dorothy, to tell her the truth!"

And when he found Dorothy was beneath that roof, and at Jessie Staples'
bedside, his joy knew no bounds.

He sought her there at once to crave her pardon for the unjust
suspicion, and no one ever knew just exactly what passed between the
sick girl lying there, Dorothy, and her old lover.

In his great generous-heartedness, Jack sent hurriedly out to learn the
fate of the hapless Kendal. He was not dead, they soon discovered, but
in a very critical condition. And Jack's generosity went so far as to
bring his rival beneath that roof, and nurse him back to health and
strength.

From the first, even while lying on her sick-bed, Jessie took the
greatest interest in the young doctor who, she remembered, had always
been so kind to her; and as soon as she was able, she begged that her
chair might be drawn up to his bedside, that she might show him her
kindly sympathy. And in the days and weeks that they were thus thrown
together, Jessie learned to care for the handsome, dark-eyed Harry
Kendal quite as much as she had ever cared for Jack.

One day, when the sun was shining, and the birds were twittering to each
other of early spring, Harry Kendal asked the pale, sweet girl who knelt
beside his couch to be his bride.

And she answered him, through her bitter tears, that though she had been
mad enough to learn to love him, it could never be, for she was
betrothed to Jack.

Jack had entered the room unperceived by both, and had heard all, and
with the magnanimity so characteristic of him, he stepped nobly forward
and placed Jessie's hand in that of the man she loved.

"I absolve you from your promise, my dear girl," he said. "You must wed
him whom you lov