. But is it not possible that poor Acton alone was
guilty?"

Mr. Clifford shook his head in reply. For a few minutes he paced up and
down the floor, and then placed himself at the back of Felicita, with
his hand upon her chair, as if to support him. In a glass opposite she
could see the reflection of his face, gray and agitated, with closed
eyes and quivering lips--a face that looked ten years older than that
which she had seen when he entered the room. She felt the chair shaken
by his trembling hand.

"I will tell you," he said in a voice which he strove to render steady.
"I did not spare my own son when he had defrauded Roland's father.
Though Sefton would not prosecute him, I left him to reap the harvest of
his deed to the full; and it was worse than the penalty the law would
have exacted. He perished, disgraced and forsaken, of starvation in
Paris, the city of pleasures and of crimes. They told me that my son was
little more than a living skeleton when he was found, so slowly had the
end come. If I did not spare him, can I relent toward Roland? The
justice I demand is, in comparison, mercy for him."

As he finished speaking he opened his eyes, and saw those of Felicita
fastened on the reflection of his face in the mirror. He turned away,
and in a minute or two resumed his seat, and spoke again in his ordinary
abrupt tone.

"What will you do?" he asked.

"I cannot tell yet," she answered; "I must wait till suspense is over.
If Roland comes back, or is brought back," she faltered, "then I must
decide what to do. I shall keep to myself till then. Is there anything I
can do?"

"Could you go to your uncle, Lord Riversdale?" suggested Mr. Clifford.

"No, no," she cried; "I will not ask any help from him. He arranged my
marriage for me, and he will feel this disgrace keenly. I will keep out
of their way; they shall not be compelled to forbid me their society."

"But to-morrow you had better go away for the day," he answered; "there
will be people coming and going, who will disturb you. There will be a
rigorous search made. There is a detective now with my lawyer, who is
looking through the papers in the bank. The police have taken possession
of Acton's lodgings."

"I have nowhere to go," she replied, "and I cannot show my face out of
doors. Madame and the children shall go to Phebe Marlowe, but I must
bear it as well as I can."

"Well," he said after a brief pause, "I will make it as easy as I can
for you. You