iven to the last extreme, had finally
turned on him and demanded that he make restitution to Rosalie Gray, as
we had come to know her. Of course, there was a scene and almost a
catastrophe. He was so worried over the position she was taking, that he
failed to carry out his part of the plans, which were to banish Rosalie
forever from this country. You were to have been taken to Paris, dear,
and kept forever in one of those awful sanitoriums. They are worse than
the grave. In the meantime, the delay gave Mr. Bonner a chance to rescue
you from the kidnapers.

"Shortly after reaching New York I quarrelled with Thomas Reddon, and my
mother and I fled to California. He followed us and sought a
reconciliation. I loathed him so much by this time, that I appealed to
my mother. It was then that she told me this miserable story, and that
is why we are in Tinkletown to-day. We learned in some way of the plot
to kidnap you and to place you where you could not be found. The inhuman
scheme of my stepfather and his adviser was to have my mother declared
insane and confined in an asylum, where her truthful utterances could
never be heard by the world, or if they were, as the ravings of a mad
woman.

"The day that we reached New York my mother _placed_ the documents and
every particle of proof in her possession in the hands of the British
Consul. The story was told to him and also to certain attorneys. A
member of his firm visited my stepfather and confronted him with the
charges. That very night Mr. Banks disappeared, leaving behind him a
note, in which he said we should never see his face again. Tom Reddon
has gone to Europe. My mother and I expect to sail this week for
England, and I have come to ask Rosalie to accompany us. I want her to
stand at last on the soil which knows her to be Rosalie Brace. The
fortune which was mine last week is hers to-day. We are not poor,
Rosalie dear, but we are not as rich as we were when we had all that
belonged to you."

CHAPTER XXXVI

Anderson Crow's Resignation

Some days later Anderson Crow returned to Tinkletown from New York,
where he had seen Rosalie Bonner and her husband off for England,
accompanied by Mrs. Banks and Elsie, who had taken passage on the same
steamer. He was attired in a brand-new suit of blue serge, a panama hat,
and patent-leather shoes which hurt his feet. Moreover, he carried a new
walking stick with a great gold head and there was a huge pearl
scarf-pin in h