e envelope, put the envelope in
an inner pocket, left the house, and walking across to the Northrop
villa, asked to see Avice Harborough.

Avice came to him in Mrs. Northrop's drawing-room, and Brereton glancing
keenly at her as she entered saw that she was looking worn and pale. He
put the letter into her hands with a mere word.

"Your father has a powerful friend--somewhere," he said.

To his astonishment the girl showed no very great surprise. She started
a little at the sight of the money; she flushed at one or two
expressions in the letter. But she read the letter through without
comment and handed it beck to him with a look of inquiry.

"You don't seem surprised!" said Brereton.

"There has always been so much mystery to me about my father that I'm
not surprised," she replied. "No!--I'm just thankful! For this
man--whoever he is--says that my father's innocence is known to him. And
that's--just think what it means--to me!"

"Why doesn't he come forward and prove it, then?" demanded Brereton.

Avice shook her head.

"He--they--want it to be proved without that," she answered. "But--don't
you think that if all else fails the man who wrote this would come
forward? Oh, surely!"

Brereton stood silently looking at her for a full minute. From the
first time of meeting with her he had felt strangely and strongly
attracted to his client's daughter, and as he looked at her now he began
to realize that he was perhaps more deeply interested in her than he
knew.

"It's all the most extraordinary mystery--this about your father--that
ever I came across!" he exclaimed suddenly. Then he looked still more
closely at her. "You've been worrying!" he said impetuously. "Don't! I
beg you not to. I'll move heaven and earth--because I, personally, am
absolutely convinced of your father's innocence. And--here's powerful
help."

"You'll do what's suggested here?" she asked.

"Certainly! It's a capital idea," he answered. "I'd have done it myself
if I'd been a rich man--but I'm not. Cheer up, now!--we're getting on
splendidly. Look here--ask Mrs. Northrop to let you come out with me.
We'll go to the solicitor--together--and see about that reward at once."

As they presently walked down to the town Brereton gave Avice another of
his critical looks of inspection.

"You're feeling better," he said in his somewhat brusque fashion. "Is it
this bit of good news?"

"That--and the sense of doing something," she answered. "If I w