o. But I need not fatigue you with
the details."

"Pray spare them," cried the girl.

"This final item relates to the sum of fifteen hundred pounds placed in
trust for you by your uncle. I lost it on a horse race. That horse,"
added the Old Lawyer with rising excitement, "ought to have won. He was
coming down the stretch like blue--but there, there, my dear, you must
forgive me if the recollection of it still stirs me to anger. Suffice it
to say the horse fell. I have kept for your inspection the score card
of the race, and the betting tickets. You will find everything in
order."

"Sir," said Winnifred, as Mr. Bonehead proceeded to fold up his papers,
"I am but a poor inadequate girl, a mere child in business, but tell me,
I pray, what is left to me of the money that you have managed?"

"Nothing," said the Lawyer. "Everything is gone. And I regret to say,
Miss Clair, that it is my painful duty to convey to you a further
disclosure of a distressing nature. It concerns your birth."

"Just Heaven!" cried Winnifred, with a woman's quick intuition. "Does it
concern my father?"

"It does, Miss Clair. Your father was not your father."

"Oh, sir," exclaimed Winnifred. "My poor mother! How she must have
suffered!"

"Your mother was not your mother," said the Old Lawyer gravely. "Nay,
nay, do not question me. There is a dark secret about your birth."

"Alas," said Winnifred, wringing her hands, "I am, then, alone in the
world and penniless."

"You are," said Mr. Bonehead, deeply moved. "You are, unfortunately,
thrown upon the world. But, if you ever find yourself in a position
where you need help and advice, do not scruple to come to me.
Especially," he added, "for advice. And meantime let me ask you in what
way do you propose to earn your livelihood?"

"I have my needle," said Winnifred.

"Let me see it," said the Lawyer.

Winnifred showed it to him.

"I fear," said Mr. Bonehead, shaking his head, "you will not do much
with that."

Then he rang the bell again.

"Atkinson," he said, "take Miss Clair out and throw her on the world."

CHAPTER II

A RENCOUNTER

As Winnifred Clair passed down the stairway leading from the Lawyer's
office, a figure appeared before her in the corridor, blocking the way.
It was that of a tall, aristocratic-looking man, whose features wore
that peculiarly saturnine appearance seen only in the English nobility.
The face, while entirely gentlemanly in its general aspect, w