ey to follow him there, but I had fortunately
saved enough for my return passage. By the time I got home, however, he
had completely disappeared and all my efforts failed to locate him. So
I returned to Chicago and again resumed my profession.

"You will say I might have denounced him as an impostor and made the
police hunt him up, but that would have ruined my chances of ever
getting another penny of the money and might have involved me
personally. Jason knew that, and it made him bold to defy me. I
silently bided my time, believing that fate would one day put the man
in my power.

"You know how I happened to find Alora in Chicago and how I lured her
to my home and kept her there a prisoner."

It was found that the dead man had made large investments in his own
name, and as he had left no will Janet declared that this property now
belonged to her, as his widow. Lawyer Conant, however, assured her that
as the money had never been legally her husband's, but was secured by
him under false pretenses, all the investments and securities purchased
with it must be transferred to the real Jason Jones, to whom they now
belonged. The court would attend to that matter.

"And it serves you right, madam," added Peter Conant, "for concocting
the plot to swindle Alora's father out of the money his dead wife
intended him to have. You are not properly punished, for you should be
sent to jail, but your disappointment will prove a slight punishment,
at least."

"So far as I knew," answered Janet, defending her crime, "Alora's
father was either dead or hidden in some corner of the world where he
could never be found. To my knowledge there was no such person
existent, so the substitution of my husband for him did him no injury
and merely kept the income out of the clutches of paid executors. Had
the right man appeared, at any time during these four years, to claim
his child and the money, he might easily have secured them by proving
his identity. So the fault was his as much as mine."

Jason Jones had personally listened to the woman's confession, which
filled him with wonder. While severely condemning her unscrupulous
methods he refused to prosecute her, although Mr. Conant urged him to
do so, and even carried his generosity to the extent of presenting her
with one of her dead husband's small investments, obtaining from her in
return the promise to lead an honest and respectable life.

It had been the artist's intention to return t