tely.

"Mr. Raymond," she returned, "influenced by my desire not to appear
utterly ungrateful to you, I have been led to reply in confidence to one
of your urgent appeals; but I can go no further. Do not ask me to."

Stricken to the heart by her look of reproach, I answered with some
sadness that her wishes should be respected. "Not but what I intend to
make every effort in my power to discover the true author of this crime.
That is a sacred duty which I feel myself called upon to perform; but I
will ask you no more questions, nor distress you with further appeals.
What is done shall be done without your assistance, and with no other
hope than that in the event of my success you will acknowledge my
motives to have been pure and my action disinterested."

"I am ready to acknowledge that now," she began, but paused and looked
with almost agonized entreaty in my face. "Mr. Raymond, cannot you leave
things as they are? Won't you? I don't ask for assistance, nor do I want
it; I would rather----"

But I would not listen. "Guilt has no right to profit by the generosity
of the guiltless. The hand that struck this blow shall not be
accountable for the loss of a noble woman's honor and happiness as well.

"I shall do what I can, Miss Leavenworth."

As I walked down the avenue that night, feeling like an adventurous
traveller that in a moment of desperation has set his foot upon a plank
stretching in narrow perspective over a chasm of immeasurable depth,
this problem evolved itself from the shadows before me: How, with no
other clue than the persuasion that Eleanore Leavenworth was engaged in
shielding another at the expense of her own good name, I was to
combat the prejudices of Mr. Gryce, find out the real assassin of Mr.
Leavenworth, and free an innocent woman from the suspicion that had, not
without some show of reason, fallen upon her?

BOOK II. HENRY CLAVERING

XIV. MR. GRYCE AT HOME

"Nay, but hear me."
Measure for Measure.

THAT the guilty person for whom Eleanore Leavenworth stood ready to
sacrifice herself was one for whom she had formerly cherished affection,
I could no longer doubt; love, or the strong sense of duty growing out
of love, being alone sufficient to account for such determined action.
Obnoxious as it was to all my prejudices, one name alone, that of the
commonplace secretary, with his sudden heats and changeful manners, his
odd ways and studied self-possession, would r