in property which might be tampered with by those who had kept
Nancy out of her rightful fortune for so long.

Henry Gordon was equally guilty with his old partner, Montgomery. But
the latter had benefited more largely from the crime, and Gordon had
been a party to it under duress.

Years before, when he lived in California, Henry Gordon had been tempted
to commit a crime. Had it become known he never could have practised law
again--in any state. Montgomery knew of the lawyer's slip and held it
over him.

The Senator's wife had a sister who was married to a very wealthy
man--Arnold Nelson. It was supposed that Mr. Nelson's family--himself,
his wife, and little daughter--had died suddenly of a fever during an
epidemic in a coast town.

With the child dead, the entire property belonging to the Nelsons came
to Senator Montgomery's wife, and he had the handling of it. But Gordon,
who had known and loved, as a young man, Nancy's mother, after the
parents' death found the deserted little girl, placed her with Miss
Prentice at Higbee School, and forced Montgomery to pay, year by year,
for the child's board and education.

Where Nancy was, Montgomery did not know until he came across her at
Pinewood Hall. Gordon had no idea that the Senator intended sending his
own daughter to Pinewood, too.

So that, in brief, was the story the broken and injured lawyer told his
charge. Later he explained more fully to Mr. Bruce, Jennie's father, and
with the aid of good counsel, Mr. Bruce made the Montgomerys disgorge
the great fortune that they had withheld from Nancy's use all these
years.

In the end Mr. Gordon did not die. He remained an invalid for some time,
but slowly recovered. Nancy, by that time, had become such a necessity
to him that he went to Clintondale for the weeks of convalescence when
the doctors refused to let him get back into legal harness again.

He was really a changed man. He could not act as Nancy's guardian; Mr.
Bruce, Jennie's father, did that. But there was scarcely a pleasant
afternoon during the remainder of Nancy's junior year, while Mr. Gordon
was at Clintondale, that a very red-haired youth, in a smart auto
outfit, did not drive up to the school entrance in a little runabout,
and whisk Nancy down to the village hotel to see Mr. Gordon for an hour
or so.

And Nancy learned to like Mr. Gordon better than she had ever expected
to when she first bearded the lion in his den.

CHAPTER XXX

NO L