ed, bright, vivacious, and thoroughly up to date. Yet somehow,
he always mistrusted Benton, though his father, perhaps blinded in his
years, had reckoned him his best and most sincere friend. There are many
unscrupulous men who pose as dear, devoted friends of those who they
know are doomed by disease to die--men who hope to be left executors
with attaching emoluments, and men who have some deep game to play
either by swindling the orphans, or by advancing one of their own kith
and kin in the social scale.

Old Mr. Henfrey, a genuine country landowner of the good old school, a
man who lived in tweeds and leggings, and who rode regularly to hounds
and enjoyed his days across the stubble, was one of the unsuspicious.
Charles Benton he had first met long ago in the Hotel de Russie in
Rome while he was wintering there. Benton was merry, and, apparently, a
gentleman. He talked of his days at Harrow, and afterwards at Cambridge,
of being sent down because of a big "rag" in the Gladstonian days, and
of his life since as a fairly well-off bachelor with rooms in London.

Thus a close intimacy had sprung up between them, and Hugh had naturally
regarded his father's friend with entire confidence.

"You admit that you are not telling me the whole truth, Hugh," remarked
the girl after a long pause. "It is hardly fair of you, is it?"

"Ah! darling, you do not know my position," he hastened to explain as
he gripped her little hand more tightly in his own. "I only wish I
could learn the truth myself so as to make complete explanation. But at
present all is doubt and uncertainty. Won't you trust me, Dorise?"

"Trust you!" she echoed. "Why, of course I will! You surely know that,
Hugh."

The young man was again silent for some moments. Then he exclaimed:

"Yet, after all, I can see no ray of hope."

"Why?"

"Hope of our marriage, Dorise," he said hoarsely. "How can I, without
money, ever hope to make you my wife?"

"But you will have your father's estate in due course, won't you?" she
asked quite innocently. "You always plead poverty. You are so like a
man."

"Ah! Dorise, I am really poor. You don't understand--_you can't_!"

"But I do," she said. "You may have debts. Every man has them--tailor's
bills, restaurant bills, betting debts, jewellery debts. Oh! I know.
I've heard all about these things from another. Well, if you have them,
you'll be able to settle them out of your father's estate all in due
course."

"And if h