r. Gryce stepping before them with a look
that closed their mouths at once. "I will just tell you what we propose
to do. You are to go back to prison and serve your time out, there is
no help for that, but as long as you behave yourselves and continue
absolutely silent regarding your relationship to the wife of this
gentleman, you shall have paid into a certain bank that he will name,
a monthly sum that upon your dismissal from jail shall be paid you with
whatever interest it may have accumulated. You are ready to promise
that, are you not?" he inquired turning to Mr. Blake.

That gentleman bowed and named the sum, which was liberal enough, and
the bank.

"But," continued the detective, ignoring the sudden flash of eye that
passed between the father and son, "let me or any of us hear of a word
having been uttered by you, which in the remotest way shall suggest that
you have in the world such a connection as Mrs. Blake, and the money not
only stops going into the bank, but old scores shall be raked up against
you with a zeal which if it does not stop your mouth in one way, will in
another, and that with a suddenness you will not altogether relish."

The men with a dogged air from which the bravado had however fled,
turned and looked from one to the other of us in a fearful, inquiring
way that duly confessed to the force of the impression made by these
words upon their slow but not unimaginative minds.

"Do you three promise to keep our secret if we keep yours?" muttered the
father with an uneasy glance at my pocket.

"We certainly do," was our solemn return.

"Very well; call in the girl and let me just look at her, then, before
we go. We won't say nothing," continued he, seeing Mr. Blake shrink,
"only she is my daughter and if I cannot bid her good-bye--"

"Let him see his child," cried Mr. Blake turning with a shudder to the
window. "I--I wish it," added he.

Straightway with hasty foot I left the room. Going to the little closet
where I had ordered his wife to remain concealed, I knocked and entered.
She was crouched in an attitude of prayer on the floor, her face buried
in her hands, and her whole person breathing that agony of suspense that
is a torture to the sensitive soul.

"Mrs. Blake," said I, dismissing the landlady who stood in helpless
distress beside her, "the arrest has been satisfactorily made and your
father calls for you to say good-bye before going away with us. Will you
come?"

"But my--my