None could envy Edmund Clarke\'s feelings as he hastened on his way to find out the fate of the fair girl he believed to be his daughter!

He could not credit the story of her elopement.

Harrowing suspicion pointed to the probability that Roma, having found out the truth about herself, had hurried to Boston to have the real heiress put out of the way.

What more likely than that the wicked girl had intercepted Jesse\'s letter containing Liane\'s address and made capital of it to further her own evil ends?

The man shuddered as he realized what a fiend he had cherished as his daughter. He realized that it was the old fable of warming a viper in the bosom that stings and wounds the succoring hand.

Roma could never come under his roof again. Her vile attempt on his life and Doctor Jay\'s precluded such a possibility.

But he groaned aloud as he thought of having[Pg 294] to break all the truth to his frail, delicate wife—unless he should be able to first find Liane and get the proofs of her real parentage.

With a trembling hand he rang Mrs. Brinkley\'s bell, starting back in surprise when it was answered by no less a person than Sophie Nutter.

"Mr. Clarke!" she faltered, in blended surprise and pleasure.

"Sophie!" he exclaimed, following her into the little parlor, as she said:

"Come in, sir. All the folks are out but me, and I must say I am as much surprised to see you here to-day as I was to see Miss Roma yesterday."

Artful Sophie, she distrusted Roma, and took this method to find out if he knew of his proud daughter\'s goings-on.

"Roma here yesterday!" he exclaimed, in a voice of agony, feeling all his suspicions confirmed.

"Yes, sir, she was here to see old Mistress Jenks yesterday, and spent an hour with her!" returned Sophie quickly, scenting some sort of a sensation in the air.

She saw him grow pale as death, and he almost groaned:

[Pg 295]

"Liane? Where was she?"

"At her work, sir, at the store."

"Where is she now?"

"It is thought she has run away with some rich young man, sir. She is missing this morning, and all her clothes gone!"

"The old woman—where is she? I must see her at once!"

"Lordy, sir, the poor old creature ain\'t here this afternoon. She went out to look for Liane, vowing to kill the fellow that persuaded her away!"

Mr. Clarke had always liked Sophie when she was a member of his household. Her kind, intelligent face invited confidence.

"Do you think that her distress was genuine, or was she playing a part?" he asked, adding: "To be frank with you, Sophie, I have a deep and friendly interest in Liane Lester, and I suspect foul play on the old woman\'s part."

It needed but this to make Sophie pour out all that she knew of the old hag\'s cruelties to Liane up to last night, when the sounds of a supposed scuffle had penetrated to her ears, causing the family to intrude on the old woman en masse, to find that granny had only been driving a nail, and that Liane was asleep in bed.

[Pg 296]

"You saw her asleep?" he asked.

"Yes; we all tiptoed to the door, and she lay peacefully in bed, with the covers drawn up to her chin."

"You are sure that she was breathing?" he asked hoarsely.

"Why, no, sir—but—my God, do you think there could have been anything wrong?" cried Sophie, alarmed by his looks.

He answered in a voice of anguish:

"I suspect that you were looking at the corpse of sweet Liane; I suspect that the noise you heard was old granny beating her to death, and that she has hidden the dead away, and put out a hideous lie to account for her disappearance!"

Sophie was so terrified that she burst into violent weeping.

But Edmund Clarke\'s face wore the calmness of a terrible despair. He felt now that Liane had been foully murdered, and that nothing remained to him but to take the most complete vengeance on her murderers.

He exclaimed hoarsely:

"Do not weep so bitterly, my good girl; tears will not bring back the dead. All that remains to us now is to take vengeance on her enemies.[Pg 297] To do this we must find proofs of their crime. Come with me, and let us search Granny Jenks\' room."

It was not hard to break open the locked door, and they went into the gloomy apartments, Sophie opening the window and letting in a flood of light.

Then she saw what had escaped their eyes last night—stains of blood on the bare, uncarpeted floor. In the bedroom, the pillow where Liane\'s head had rested last night was also marked by red stains that told in their own mute language the story of a terrible crime.

Their horrified eyes met, and he groaned:

"It is as I told you! She was murdered, sweet Liane! Oh, I will take a terrible vengeance for the crime!"

Sophie replied with heartbroken sobbing, and they remained thus several moments, shuddering with horror in the bare, fireless room.

But not a tear dimmed the man\'s eyes. He was stricken with despair that lay too deep for tears. His heavy eyes wandered about the room, lighting on a small black trunk in a corner.

"If I could only find the proofs!" he muttered, and unhesitatingly broke the lock, scattering the contents out upon the floor.

[Pg 298]

It was filled with yellowing relics of a bygone day, and he turned them over rapidly, saying to Sophie:

"I am searching for something to prove a suspicion of mine—a suspicion of a deadly wrong!"

She dried her eyes and looked on with womanly curiosity, while he picked up and shook a little red box in the bottom of the trunk.

A dozen or two trinkets and letters fell out on the floor, and he searched them eagerly over, lighting at last on a slender golden necklace belonging to an infant.

He held it with a shaking hand, saying to Sophie:

"See this little clasp forming in small diamonds the word \'Baby\'? It belonged to my wife in infancy, and when our little Roma was born she clasped it on her neck."

"And Granny Jenks has stolen it!" she cried indignantly.

"Worse than that! She stole also the child that wore it!" he answered, with a burst of the bitterest despair.

His heart was breaking with its burden of concealed misery, and Sophie\'s eager, respectful[Pg 299] sympathy drew him on till he could not resist the temptation to tell her all, sure of her sympathy.

It was like reading a novel to Sophie—the story of the lost babe, the spurious one substituted, and all that had happened since to the present moment.

"Oh, my dear sir, I believe you are quite right! Sweet, beautiful Liane was surely your daughter, while as for the other, she never had the ways of a lady, for all her grand bringing up, and she had the same cruel spirit like granny, always wanting to beat any one who displeased her. She slapped my face several times when I was her maid, and maybe you know, sir, that I left her service because I saw her push a man over the cliff one night."

"I have heard it whispered that you fancied something of the kind. My wife said you were crazy," returned Mr. Clarke.

"Crazy—not a bit of it, sir! It was God\'s holy truth! I can show you the man! He escaped the death she doomed him to, and lives in this very house!" cried Sophie, glad that she could defend herself.

"I should like to see the man!" cried Clarke,[Pg 300] who was eager to get all the evidence possible against Roma.

"He will be coming in directly from his school," cried Sophie; and, indeed, at that moment a step was heard in the hall, and the dark, bearded face of the new boarder appeared passing the door.

"Come in!" called Sophie imperatively, and as he obeyed: "Mr. Clarke, this is Carlos Cisneros, the man Miss Roma pushed over the bluff."

Cisneros bowed to the stranger and scowled at the informer.

"Why did you betray my confidence?" he cried threateningly.

"Because I knew you wanted to get your revenge on her, and this man will help you to it."

The two men glared at each other, and Mr. Clarke asked:

"Why did she thirst for your life?"

"I held a dangerous secret of hers, and she believed me dead. When I hunted her down and threatened to betray her, she tried to kill me. She pushed me over the bluff, but I was picked up by a passing yacht, and my life was saved."

"What was that secret?"

"She has promised to pay me richly for keeping it," sullenly answered the man.

[Pg 301]

"She cannot keep her promise, because she is not my daughter at all, but an adopted one, and, finding out that she has attempted many crimes, I shall cast her off penniless."

"That alters the case. If she cannot pay me for holding my tongue, I\'ll take my revenge instead," answered Carlos Cisneros, with flashing eyes. "Sir, Roma is my wife. We were married secretly at boarding school. Then she tired of me and went home, while I was ill. When I hunted her down she attempted to murder me!"

Suddenly they were startled by a tigerish snarl of rage.

Granny, creeping catlike along the hall, came suddenly upon the open door, and the group within her room.

She staggered over the threshold, and glared like a tiger in the act of springing.

Mr. Clarke, still holding the shining necklace in his hand, cried bitterly:

"Miserable murderess, you are detected in your crimes! Here is the proof in my hand that you are the fiend that stole my infant daughter from her mother\'s breast, and made her young life one long torture! Here upon the floor and the bed are the blood stains that prove you murdered my[Pg 302] child last night. My God, I only keep my hands off your throat so that you may tell me what you have done with my precious dead!" his voice ending in a hollow groan.

The detected wretch crept closer to Cisneros, whining:

"Don\'t let him kill me! I know I deserve it, but don\'t let him kill me!"

"Tell him the truth, then!" cried Cisneros, who, although not a very good man himself, was astonished at the story he had heard, and felt a keen disgust for the repulsive, whining old creature.

"What is it you want to know?" she muttered, gazing fearfully at Clarke.

"Was not Liane Lester my own child?"

"Yes, I s\'pose it\'s useless to deny it, now that you\'ve found your baby\'s necklace in my trunk."

"And the girl I adopted as my daughter is your grandchild?"

"Yes—but you\'ll have to keep her now, and give her all your gold. You won\'t never find Liane no more!" she muttered, with a cunning leer, as of one demented.

"Tell me why you stole my child!"

"It won\'t do you any good to find out now. She[Pg 303] won\'t never come back any more!" she muttered stubbornly.

He groaned in anguish, but reiterated:

"I insist on having the truth. Answer my question."

"Tell him the truth, you she devil!" growled Cisneros............