rtis remains in the
background."

"Does he deny the deed under which I hold the property?" said Harcourt
savagely.

"He says it was only a security for a trifling loan, and not an actual
transfer."

"And don't those fools know that his security could be forfeited?"

"Yes, but not in the way it is recorded in the county clerk's office.
They say that the record shows that there was an interpolation in the
paper he left with you--which was a forgery. Briefly, Harcourt, you are
accused of that. More,--it is intimated that when he fell into the creek
that night, and escaped on a raft that was floating past, that he had
been first stunned by a blow from some one interested in getting rid of
him."

He paused and glanced out of the window.

"Is that all?" asked Harcourt in a perfectly quiet, steady, voice.

"All!" replied Grant, struck with the change in his companion's manner,
and turning his eyes upon him quickly.

The change indeed was marked and significant. Whether from relief at
knowing the worst, or whether he was experiencing the same reaction from
the utter falsity of this last accusation that he had felt when Grant
had unintentionally wronged him in his previous recollection, certain it
is that some unknown reserve of strength in his own nature, of which
he knew nothing before, suddenly came to his aid in this extremity. It
invested him with an uncouth dignity that for the first time excited
Grant's respect.

"I beg your pardon, Grant, for the hasty way I spoke to you a moment
ago, for I thank you, and appreciate thoroughly and sincerely what you
have done. You are right; it is a matter for fighting and not fussing
over. But I must have a head to hit. Whose is it?"

"The man who holds himself legally responsible is Fletcher,--the
proprietor of the 'Clarion,' and a man of property."

"The 'Clarion'? That is the paper which began the attack?" said
Harcourt.

"Yes, and it is only fair to tell you here that your son threw up his
place on it in consequence of its attack upon you."

There was perhaps the slightest possible shrinking in Harcourt's
eyelids--the one congenital likeness to his discarded son--but his
otherwise calm demeanor did not change. Grant went on more cheerfully:
"I've told you all I know. When I spoke of an unknown WORST, I did not
refer to any further accusation, but to whatever evidence they might
have fabricated or suborned to prove any one of them. It is only the
strength and fairne