der an assumed name, was it not? It was
she who told you that she had died?"

"Oh, I lied to you--I lied to you!" wailed Maw Hoover, breaking down
suddenly, and throwing herself at the feet of Mrs. Richards. "She wasn't
dead. It was that wicked Mr. Holmes and Farmer Weeks who made me say she
was."

"What?" thundered Richards. "She isn't dead? Where is she?"

"Bessie!" said Charlie, calling to her sharply. "Here is your daughter,
Mrs. Richards, and a daughter to be proud of!"

And the next moment Bessie, Bessie King, the waif no longer, but Bessie
Richards, was in her mother's arms!

"So Mr. Holmes was Bessie's uncle!" said Eleanor, amazed. "But why did
he act so?"

"I can explain that," said Charlie, sternly. "It was he who set his
father so strongly against his sister's marriage to Mr. Richards. He
expected that he would inherit, as a result, her share of his father's
estate, as well as his own. But his plans miscarried. Mrs. Richards and
her husband had disappeared before her father's death, and, when he
softened and was inclined to relent, he could not find them. But he knew
they had a daughter, and he left to her his daughter's share of his
fortune--over a million dollars. There was no trace of the child,
however, and so there was a provision in the will that if she did not
come forward to claim the money on her eighteenth birthday it should go
to her uncle--to Holmes."

"I always said it was money that was making him act that way!" cried
Dolly Ransom.

"Yes," said Jamieson. "He had squandered much of his own money--he
wanted to make sure of getting Bessie's fortune for himself. So when he
learned through Silas Weeks where the child was, he paid Mrs. Hoover to
tell her parents she was dead, and then, after she had run away, he and
Weeks did all they could to get her back to a place where there was no
chance of anyone finding out who she was. They nearly succeeded--but I
have been able to block their plans. And one reason is that they were
greedy and they couldn't let Zara Slavin and her father alone. He is a
great inventor and they profited by his ignorance of American customs."

"I only found out her name last night," said Eleanor. "I wondered if he
could be the Slavin who invented the new wireless telephone--"

"They got him into jail on a trumped-up charge," said Charlie. "And then
they tried to keep Zara away from people who might learn the truth from
her, and offer to supply the money he needed. In