THE Admiral worried himself almost sick over Phil Highwood's inability to find the missing , and his condition of mind and body was not improved by a meeting which he had with the of the new mining company. That gentleman insisted that the sketches should be filed at once, for his promise from his fellow-incorporators had been merely verbal, and he warned the Admiral that such promises were frequently ignored in business, and that he, the projector, would be powerless to force the matter should his associates vote against him.  
The Admiral explained the cause of the delay and the importance of the matter to Jermyn in particular, and this the projector so strongly, he once having been a poor young man engaged to be married, that he succeeded in from the directors a written promise that if the sketches were deposited with the company within three days from date the stock should be delivered; otherwise it would be disposed of elsewhere.
 
All this caused the old gentleman to once more speak to Jermyn about the matter, and Jermyn, noting the condition to which excitement had brought his friend, and not knowing that the Admiral had already made a clean breast of the matter to the Highwoods, one morning went to throw himself upon Trif's mercy, but, as already intimated, he saw only Fenie. He succeeded in telling her the story, but when he learned that the sketches had disappeared he became about as as the Admiral.
 
Had he spoken when first the sketches were asked for, there would have been no trouble, he learned; he therefore reproached himself for his friend's sake and for Kate's, and began wondering how he could ever make to the man who had done so much for him. As an army officer's opportunities for making fifty thousand dollars are practically non-existent, he became so that Kate thought her suspicions about him and Fenie were verified.
 
But Kate was not going to lose a happy evening from the short remainder of Jermyn's leave of absence, as she persisted in calling his assignment to duty at Sandy Hook. As she was going to be magnanimous, and had begun finely, she resolved to complete the task, so she exclaimed to Jermyn suddenly one evening:
 
"My dear boy, I want you to stop thinking about that letter. Don't start—nor ask me any questions. I'll promise to overlook it, and forget all about it, in the course of time, if you will be your old self once more."
 
"But I never can forget it," replied Jermyn, "never! Think of the cruelty of it, to you?"
 
 
"But if I ignore it, and cast it from my mind forever, why should you persist in cherishing it and being miserable about it?"
 
"Why? Because I am a man and love you."
 
"I shall love you the more, because you have been so miserable about the matter. Won't that satisfy you?"
 
How grand a woman she was, Jermyn thought! Still, how could she have learned about that letter, and the drawings that made it so valuable? Had the Admiral told her, and asked her to add her to his own? Trif could not have been the informer; she had every reason for avoiding the subject, in conversation with Kate. Kate had said he must not ask her how she learned about the paper; but suddenly he found out, or thought he did, for Kate said:
 
"Will it make your mind any easier to know that I have forgiven her?"
 
"Then you really know all?" said he, looking into her eyes. He did it very coolly, in the circumstances, Kate thought, but she was not going to a bit from the greatness of magnanimity upon which she had resolved, so she said:
 
"Yes, all; but why should I harbor any ill feeling? Besides, she is quite weak and silly. She will know more when she grows older."
 
"I am sorry to hear you speak of her in that way," said Jermyn, gravely. "I had hoped that you and she would become very warm friends; indeed, I supposed you were so already."
 
Kate a suspicious look at Jermyn. Was there duplicity in a man so honest? If so, her faith in human nature would be forever lost.
 
"Why do you wish us to be warm friends?" she asked, coldly. "So that you may frequently have her near you?"
 
Jermyn looked amazed and indignant as he exclaimed:
 
"Kate, I swear to you that the tender regard I once had for her is gone forever. Do believe me."
 
"Then it was not you who wrote the letter about which you and she have been so troubled about in the last few days?"
 
"I? Why, you said you knew all about it! Don't you know that she wrote it?"
 
"The forward minx!"
 
"I thought you said you had forgiven her?"
 
"I wish I hadn't! The idea of a girl as careful as Fenie Wardlow to be——"
 
"My dear girl, you've been dreadfully misinformed in some way. Fenie didn't write the letter; 'twas her sister."
 
"Jermyn!" exclaimed Kate, aghast. What was the world coming to? She had heard of married women who pretended to adore their husbands, and who with other men, but she supposed they were far from the society in which she moved. So it was Trif and her—carelessness, call it, over which Fenie had been so uncomfortable when Kate called, a few hours back! Oh, the wickedness of the world! Whom now was there to trust?
 
"So," said Kate, slowly and coldly, "it was a married woman, one whom I have respected and loved, who wrote you the letter which——"
 
"Stop, Kate—at once. There is a dreadful mistake somewhere. Let us be frank with each other, for the good of ............