y were going to have this meeting?" asked Weil,
nervously. "I am all at sea."

"I have been on his track ever since the day I was to have been
married," was the reply. "I didn't intend to leave a mystery like that
unsolved. I discovered that the Ferns were living here, and that
Hannibal originated a few miles further on. I found that Miss Daisy was
still a little afraid of him, that he was using an influence over her
which was to say the least strange. Before I got at the truth I had some
queer misgivings, you may believe."

Mr. Weil stared at his companion.

"But how did you learn all this?" he demanded.

"Oh," said Roseleaf, with a slight laugh, "I've been in this
neighborhood for two months. They haven't met once but I heard every
word they said. Little by little I gained the truth of the matter. And
to-night, as it was perhaps the last time they would be together, I
wanted you to understand it perfectly."

Archie frowned at the thoughts that crept in upon his brain.

"Excuse me for saying that you don't appear to mind it much," he
muttered. "If you have heard many conversations like the one to which I
just listened, and could go away without expressing the thoughts you
ought to feel, you are made up differently from me."

"That may be so, too," smiled the other, good-humoredly. "But remember
that things are changed. I once was a man in love--now I am simply a
writer of romance."

The elder man shivered.

"Could one be actually in love with a girl like that and then recover
from it?" he asked, half to himself.

"I don't think I ever was very much in love," was the quick reply. "But
never mind that. Let us talk of Hannibal. You spoke of going after him.
What would you have done had you carried out that intention?"

Weil had not thought of the matter in this concrete form. He had wanted
to punish the negro for his crimes against the woman he so dearly loved,
against the old man for whom he had such a warm affection. How he would
have accomplished this he had not decided. The first thing was to follow
and tax the wretch with his offense. Subsequent events would have
depended on the way Hannibal met the accusation. Certainly the temper of
the pursuer would have been warm, and his conduct might have been
severe.

"I don't know," he said. "I should have told him for one thing that he
would have to reckon with something more than a weak girl or a poor old
man if he annoyed that family again. In case he had be