icions that he was
no other than their old friend, Paul Benedict. He knew that this
suspicion would be reported by Mr. Belcher's agent at once, and that Mr.
Belcher would take desperate steps to secure himself in his possessions.
What form these measures would take--whether of fraud or personal
violence--he could not tell.

He advised Mr. Benedict to give him a power of attorney to prosecute Mr.
Belcher for the sum due him on the use of his inventions, and to procure
an injunction on his further use of them, unless he should enter into an
agreement to pay such a royalty as should be deemed equitable by all the
parties concerned. Mr. Benedict accepted the advice, and the papers were
executed at once.

Armed with this document, Mr. Balfour bade good-bye to Number Nine and
its pleasant company, and hastened back to the city, where he took the
first opportunity to report to his friends the readiness of Jim to
receive them for the summer.

It would be pleasant to follow them into their forest pastimes, but more
stirring and important matters will hold us to the city.

CHAPTER XXIII.

IN WHICH MR. BELCHER EXPRESSES HIS DETERMINATION TO BECOME A "FOUNDER,"
BUT DROPS HIS NOUN IN FEAR OF A LITTLE VERB OF THE SAME NAME.

Mrs. Dillingham had a difficult role to play. She could not break with
Mr. Belcher without exposing her motives and bringing herself under
unpleasant suspicion and surveillance. She felt that the safety of her
protege and his father would be best consulted by keeping peace with
their enemy; yet every approach of the great scoundrel disgusted and
humiliated her. That side of her nature which had attracted and
encouraged him was sleeping, and, under the new motives which were at
work within her, she hoped that it would never wake. She looked down the
devious track of her past, counted over its unworthy and most unwomanly
satisfactions, and wondered. She looked back to a great wrong which she
had once inflicted on an innocent man, with a self-condemnation so deep
that all the womanhood within her rose into the purpose of reparation.

The boy whom she had called to her side, and fastened by an impassioned
tenderness more powerful even than her wonderful art, had become to her
a fountain of pure motives. She had a right to love this child. She owed
a duty to him beyond any woman living. Grasping her right, and
acknowledging her duty--a right and duty accorded to her by his nominal
protector--she would