had long banished
to the deepest and most hopeless abysses of his soul; while Bernard, we
repeat, ventured to take her hand in his own, and calm her painful
agitation by such suggestions as immediately occurred to his mind.

"In the first place," he said, "my dear Miss Brace, I come to repay to
you your father's generous gift."

"It belongs to his legal heirs. I can not receive it with honor," said
the money-lender's daughter, firmly.

"Not so," replied West, gravely: "it was a free gift to me. I repay it
by a natural, not a legal obligation;" and he laid the two twenty-pound
notes upon the table. "Next," he resumed, "I have to pay a debt of
gratitude. I owe my life to your father. Thus in a manner I have become
his adopted son. Thus," he continued impetuously, "I have a right to
say to you, regard me as a brother; share the produce of my labor;
render me happy in the thought that I am serving the child of my
benefactor! To disdain my gratitude would be a cruel insult."

"I can not disdain it!" exclaimed the daughter of the usurer with a
sudden impulse of that sublime confidence which a noble and generous
soul can alone inspire. "Yes--I accept your assistance!"

The face of Bernard brightened up, as if by an electric agent. But how
were the two children of sorrow confounded by the discovery that they
were no longer alone, and that their conversation had been overheard by
an utter stranger, who, leaning against the wall at the further end of
the room, near the door, appeared to survey them with an utter
indifference to the propriety of such behavior!

He was a man of between forty and fifty years; a great beard and
mustache concealed the lower part of a swarthy but handsome countenance
of rare dignity and severity of outline. His dress was utterly
un-English. A vast mantle, with a hood, fell nearly to the ground, and
he wore huge courier's boots, which were still splashed, as if from a
journey. His great dark eyes rested with an expression of royal
benevolence upon the two young people, toward whom he had advanced with
a courteous inclination, that, as if magnetically, repressed Bernard's
first indignant impulse.

"I am the heir-at-law," he said, in a mild voice, as if he had been
announcing a most agreeable piece of intelligence.

"Then, sir," said Bernard, "I trust--"

"Trust absolutely!" interrupted quickly the foreign-looking heir. "My
children, do you know who I am? No? I will tell you. I am a monster, wh