ver he is," said Cook.

"Yes, I think he is to be pitied," said Carl, gravely; "but the
revelation you will be able to make will enable him to insist upon a
separation."

"The best thing he can do! How long before you return to Albany?"

"A week or ten days."

"I don't know how I am to live in the meantime," said Cook, anxiously.
"I am penniless, but for the money you have just given me."

"At what price can you obtain board?"

"I know of a decent house where I can obtain board and a small room for
five dollars a week."

"Here are twelve dollars. This will pay for two weeks' board, and give
you a small sum besides. What is the address?"

Cook mentioned a number on a street by the river.

Carl took it down in a notebook with which he had provided himself.

"When I return to Albany," he said, "I will call there at once."

"You won't forget me?"

"No; I shall be even more anxious to meet you than you will be to meet
me. The one to whom your former wife is married is very near and dear to
me, and I cannot bear to think that he has been so wronged and imposed
upon!"

"Very well, sir! I shall wait for you with confidence. If I can get back
from my former wife the money she robbed me of, I can get on my feet
again, and take a respectable position in society. It is very hard for a
man dressed as I am to obtain any employment."

Looking at his shabby and ragged suit, Carl could readily believe this
statement. If he had wished to employ anyone he would hardly have been
tempted to engage a man so discreditable in appearance. "Be of good
courage, Mr. Cook," he said, kindly. "If your story is correct, and I
believe it is, there are better days in store for you."

"Thank you for those words," said Cook, earnestly. "They give me new
hope."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

FROM ALBANY TO NIAGARA.

Carl took the afternoon train on the following day for Buffalo. His
thoughts were busy with the startling discovery he had made in regard
to his stepmother. Though he had never liked her, he had been far from
imagining that she was under the ban of the law. It made him angry
to think that his father had been drawn into a marriage with such a
woman--that the place of his idolized mother had been taken by one who
had served a term at Sing Sing.

Did Peter know of his mother's past disgrace? he asked himself. Probably
not, for it had come before his birth. He only wondered that the secret
had never got out before. There must