game before, you are certainly caught this time."

"Mr. Arnold, I assure you that I am blameless in this matter--that
I honestly believed the jewels to be the same that I brought to you
yesterday," the young man said, with an earnest directness which
convinced the gentleman that he spoke the truth. "I see now," he
continued, "that they are not; and"--a feeling of faintness almost
overpowering him as he realized all that this experience would cost
him, aside from his pecuniary loss--"I have been outrageously deceived
and hoodwinked, for I have already advanced the sum you named to the
woman who wished to dispose of the diamonds."

Mr. Arnold searched the manly face before him, and was forced to believe
in the truth of his statements.

"If that is so, then you have indeed been wretchedly swindled," he said;
"for these crescents are but duplicates in paste of those I examined
yesterday. How did you happen to be so taken in?"

Mr. Cutler briefly related the circumstances, and when he concluded, Mr.
Arnold remarked:

"The woman was an accomplished cheat, and led you on very adroitly. Your
mistake was in advancing the money for the stones; if you had brought
these things to me first, you would have saved yourself this loss. But
of course she never would have allowed that; her game was to get the
money from you, and she worked you finely for it."

Mr. Cutler groaned in spirit as he realized it all, and how he had tied
his own hands by what he had written on the card that he had given to the
wily woman.

He kept this portion of the transaction to himself, however; he could not
confess how foolishly weak he had been. Surely his infatuation for the
beautiful widow had led him beyond all bounds of common sense and good
judgment; but he had no one but himself to blame, and he must bear his
loss as best he could. His lost faith in womanhood was the heaviest part
of it.

"I sincerely regret having put you to so much trouble, Mr. Arnold," he
courteously remarked, as he closed the jewel-case and put it out of
sight, "and as a favor, I would ask that you regard this matter as
strictly confidential. I have been miserably fooled, and met with a
heavy loss, but I do not wish all Chicago to ring with the story."

"You may trust me, and accept my assurance that I am sincerely sorry for
you," the jeweler returned, in a tone of sympathy, and now entirely
convinced of the honesty of the young man. "And let me tell you,"
he added, "f