ll, and was so
true to you? I can't understand it--no, I can't. I don't believe for
a moment that she was telling me the truth the other day--why, there is
no other fellow. I have made inquiries and I can't hear of anyone. It
isn't as if hundreds wouldn't want her, but she is keeping company with
no one. I believe it was an excuse she made; there's a mystery at the
bottom of it. Something put her out, and she was too proud to let me
see what it was. And, oh dear, why was I so mad as to propose marriage
to a girl like Louisa Clay? Yes; why shouldn't I get quit of the thing
to-night? I have the money now. I can take Uncle James's advice
to-night; why shouldn't I do it?"

Jim stood straight up as these thoughts came to him. He slipped the
foreign letter into his pocket, walked with a long stride to the
window, flung the sash open, and looked out into the night.

"I can't do it," he muttered; "it isn't in me to be an out-and-out
scoundrel. She is not the girl I want, but I have promised her, and I
must stick to it; all the same, I am a ruined man. Oh, if Alison had
only been true to me."

"Now, old chap, what are you grumbling to yourself for?" said a voice
just behind him.

He turned abruptly and met the keen-eyed, ferret-looking face of the
detective Sampson. Sampson and Jim had not been very friendly lately,
and Jim wondered now in a vague sort of way why his quondam friend had
troubled himself to visit him.

"Sit down, won't you?" he said abruptly. "There's a chair."

"I'll shut the door first," said Sampson. "I have got a thing or two
to say to you, and you may as well hear me out. You aint behaved
straight to me, Jim; you did a shabby thing behind my back; but, Lor'
bless you, ef it's saved me from a gel like Louisa Clay, why, I'll be
obleeged to you to the end of my days. Look here, I was very near
committing myself with that girl. 'Twasn't that I loved her, but I
don't go for to deny that she was good-looking, and she certainly did
tickle my fancy considerable, and then when I thought of the tidy bit
of silver that she would have from her father, I made up my mind that
she would be a good enough match for me; but mind you, I never thought
her straight--I never yet was mistook in any character I ever studied
carefully. I couldn't follow out my calling if I did, Jim, old chap;
and that you know well."

"I don't suppose you could, George," said Jim; "but I think it only
fair to tell you bef