Lucy.  “No, Sir; but I know he left them, just as well as if I had seen them in his hands.”

Frank.  “True, true enough in fact, but not so good in law.”

Lucy.  “Is there anything by which the law can reach him, Sir?  Oh, I should be so glad, if the law could break off this match, even if it cannot break his neck; and he deserves that, I am afraid, if ever a villain did.”

Frank.  “Yes,—­there’s enough in this roll to banish such a fellow, if not to hang him.  And it shall be done, too.”

Lucy.  “And Miss Millicent be saved, too?  Delightful!”

Sterling, with the roll of yellow paper in his fist, now returned to the parlor, where Mr. Hopkins impatiently opened upon him, before he could close the door.

“Well, Mr. Counsellor, we are all waiting for you.  Mr. Dartmouth has urgent business, and is in haste to go.  We shall be holden in heavy damages, if we detain him.”

“He will be in more haste to go by-and-by, Sir.  I have some papers here, Sir, which make it necessary that this marriage-contract should stand aside till some other matters can be settled, or at least explained.  I refer to these manifold dispatches, detailing the latest news of the Liverpool cotton-market, by the fraudulent possession of which on the part of somebody, a client of mine, Captain Grant of Waltham, was cheated out of a small fortune.  Perhaps Mr. Dartmouth knows who went to Waltham one morning to close a bargain before the telegraph-news should transpire.  It is rather remarkable that certain lost dispatches should have been found in that man’s track.”

Whether Chip Dartmouth heard three words of this harangue may be doubted.  The sight of that yellowish paper did the business for him.  His expression vibrated from that of a mad rattlesnake to that of a dog with the most downcast extremities.  At last he rushed to the door, saying he “would stand no such nonsense.”

“But you will have to stand it!”

Chip was gone.  Mr. Hopkins was in a state of amazement; and Millicent, if she did not swoon, seemed to herself in a trance.  Neither of them could see in the cause anything to account for the effect.  How could a merchant prince quail before so flimsy a piece of paper?  Mr. Sterling explained.  Mr. Hopkins begged the matter might not be made public,—­above all things, that legal proceedings should be avoided.

“No,” said Sterling,—­“I shall punish him more effectually.  The proof, though strong as holy writ, would probably fail to convict him in court.  Therefore I shall let him off on these conditions:  He shall disgorge to Captain Grant his profits on that cotton with interest, relinquish Miss Millicent’s hand, if she so pleases, and, at any rate, relieve Boston of his presence altogether and for good.  He may do it as soon as he likes, and as privately.”

This course at once met the approbation of all parties, and was carried out.