patient, who had
raised up in bed to stare at him, uttered a low moan and fell back on
her pillow, dead. I saw the tragedy and involuntarily screamed, and
Jason Jones saw she was dead and cried out in fear. I had just time to
recover my wits and whisper to him to keep his mouth shut and I would
make him rich when Doctor Anstruther hurried into the room.

"The whole thing was unpremeditated up to that time, but now I assisted
fate, for I had witnessed Mrs. Jones' will and knew well its contents.
No one seemed to know there were two artists named Jason Jones and
everyone accepted my husband as Alora's father and the one entitled to
her guardianship and to profit by the terms of the will.

"An hour after Mrs. Jones died I secured a secret interview with my
husband, who until then had been thoroughly bewildered, and explained
to him that the mistake in identity would, if he took prompt advantage
of it, give him the control of an enormous income for seven years--
until the child reached the age of eighteen. He was fearful, at first,
that the other Jason Jones would appear and prosecute him for
swindling, but as the husband of Antoinette Seaver had not been heard
from in years, even by his own wife, I induced him to accept the risk.
It was I who virtually put that income into my husband's hands, and in
return he agreed to supply me with whatever money I demanded, up to a
half of his receipts. But he proved that there is not always honor
among thieves, for after he had been made legal executor of the estate
and his fears had somewhat subsided he endeavored to keep all the money
for himself and begrudged me the one or two instalments I forced him to
give me. Strangely enough, this formerly poverty-stricken artist now
developed a love of accumulation--a miserly love for the money itself,
and hated to spend any of it even on himself or on the girl to whom he
owed his good fortune. The coward actually ran away and hid himself in
Europe, and I, having spent all the money he had given me, with the
idea I had an inexhaustible fund to draw upon, was forced to turn nurse
again.

"After three years I had saved enough to follow him to Europe, where I
located him at a lonely villa in Italy. Its very loneliness was my
undoing, for he made a husky servant lock me up in an outhouse and
there I was held a prisoner until Jason had again escaped to America.
He thought he could hide better in the United States and that I
wouldn't have the mon