ime to make him comprehend their meaning, but
after a while the name of his sister, coupled with that of John Burrill,
brought him staggering to his feet, and a few moments later, a plain
statement of the facts, hurled bluntly at him by one of the loungers,
sobered him completely. In an instant he had laid his informant
sprawling in the saloon sawdust. He declared it a calumny, as you did,
and declared war upon the lot of them. Soon kinder hands rescued him
from these tormentors, and men he could not doubt convinced him of the
truth of the unhappy affair. And then, any who saw would have pitied
him. The boy is wild and bad, but he has a heart, and he loves his
sister. Poor fellow! he is not all bad."

"Poor Evan!"

"He telegraphed at once to his father, and then set out for Mapleton,
looking like the ghost of himself, but carrying a freshly filled flask."

"Of course," mournfully.

"He would have started in pursuit, had they not convinced him of the
folly of such an undertaking."

"Folly, indeed, for him."

"And now, Miss Wardour, we have arrived at the end of certainty, and to
enter into the field of conjecture is useless. The time may come when
some of us may be of actual service to this most unhappy friend of
yours. I confess that I wait with some curiosity the movements of her
parents in the matter."

"They will take her from him, at once. They will buy him off; compel
him--anything to get her back."

"Perhaps; but--she may resist them. Think of that letter."

"True. Ah me! I can't think. Doctor Heath, I have kept you here
starving. I had forgotten that dinner ever was, or could be. You shall
dine with Aunt Honor and myself; and, for the present, we will not speak
of poor Sybil's flight to her. She would run the entire gamut of
speculation, for she is very much given to 'seeing through things,' and
I can't bear to talk too much on this subject. I should get angry, and
nervous, and altogether unpleasant. I say, 'you will stay;' _will_ you
stay?"

He has never before been invited to dine at Wardour Place, except when
the dinner has been a formal one, and the guests numerous; but he
accepts this invitation to dine _en famille_, quite nonchalantly, and as
a thing of course.

So he dines at Wardour Place, and talks with Aunt Honor about the
robbery, and listens to her description of the splendid Wardour
diamonds, and looks at Constance, and thinks his own thoughts.

[Illustration: So he dines at Wardour P