injury."

"You cannot injure him if he is innocent. My methods are very safe."

"If I could forget his cough! but it had that peculiar catch in it that
I remembered so well in the cough of John Graham. I did not pay any
especial heed to it at the time. Old days and old troubles were far
enough from my thoughts; but now that my suspicions are raised, that
low, choking sound comes back to me in a strangely persistent way, and I
seem to see a well-remembered form in the stooping figure of this
beggar. Oh, I hope the good God will forgive me if I attribute to this
disappointed man a wickedness he never committed."

"Who is John Graham?" I urged, "and what was the nature of the wrong you
did him?"

She rose, cast me one appealing glance, and perceiving that I meant to
have her whole story, turned towards the fire and stood warming her feet
before the hearth, with her face turned away from my gaze.

"I was once engaged to marry him," she began. "Not because I loved him,
but because we were very poor--I mean my mother and myself--and he had
a home and seemed both good and generous. The day came when we were to
be married--this was in the West, way out in Kansas--and I was even
dressed for the wedding, when a letter came from my uncle here, a rich
uncle, very rich, who had never had anything to do with my mother since
her marriage, and in it he promised me fortune and everything else
desirable in life if I would come to him, unencumbered by any foolish
ties. Think of it! And I within half an hour of marriage with a man I
had never loved and now suddenly hated. The temptation was overwhelming,
and, heartless as my conduct may appear to you, I succumbed to it.
Telling my lover that I had changed my mind, I dismissed the minister
when he came, and announced my intention of proceeding East as soon as
possible. Mr. Graham was simply paralysed by his disappointment, and
during the few days which intervened before my departure, I was haunted
by his face, which was like that of a man who had died from some
overwhelming shock. But when I was once free of the town, especially
after I arrived in New York, I forgot alike his misery and himself.
Everything I saw was so beautiful! Life was so full of charm, and my
uncle so delighted with me and everything I did! Then there was James
Holmes, and after I had seen him----But I cannot talk of that. We loved
each other, and under the surprise of this new delight how could I be
expected to re