wn mother,
though I don't know when I learned that. Father told me once that mother
had left me enough to keep me comfortably even without what he would
leave me, so I'm sure I shall have enough to repay you if I could once
get it."

"Don't worry about me!" he exclaimed. "It seems so terrible for you to
have been alone in a situation like that! Wasn't there any one you could
appeal to for help?"

"No, not any one whom I thought it would be right to tell. You see, in a
way it was my father's honor. She was his wife, and I'm sure he loved
her--at least at first--and she really was very good to me, except when
it was a question of her son."

"I'm afraid I can't agree with you there!" he said sternly. "I think she
was a clever actress. But excuse me. Go on, please."

"At last, when things had got so bad that I thought I must run away
somewhere, my stepmother came into my room one morning and locked the
door. She had been weeping, and she looked very sweet and pitiful. She
said she had something to tell me. She had tried not to have to do it,
for she was afraid it would grieve me and might make me have hard
feelings against my father. I told her that was impossible. Then she
told me that my father on his deathbed had called her to him and told
her that it was his wish that I should marry one of her sons, and he
wanted her to tell me. He felt that he had wronged them by hating them
for my sake and he felt that I could make it all right by marrying one
of them. My stepmother said that when she saw how infatuated dear
Herbert was with me she hoped that she would be spared having to tell
me, but now that I was treating him so she felt bound to deliver the
message. Then she handed me a paper which said virtually the same thing
which she had told me, and was signed by my father in his own
handwriting."

"Was the paper written or printed?" interrupted Reyburn.

"I think it was typewritten, but the signature was papa's. There could
be no mistake about that, and he wouldn't have signed something he
didn't mean." Betty sighed as if it were a subject she had worn into her
heart by much sorrowful thought.

"It might be quite possible for him to have done that under influence
or delirium, or when he was too sick to realize."

"Oh, do you think so?" Betty caught at the hope. "It seems so awful to
go against papa's last request."

"There is nothing awful but the idea of your being tied to that--beast!"
said Reyburn with unexpec