“It is needless to recall to you the fact that our wedded life has been a failure.  You have made my life miserable—­ay, and that of my sweet, motherless, tender little Faynie, until, in sheer desperation, she has fled from her home on the night I write this, and my grief is more poignant than I can well endure.

     “You must feign neither surprise nor indignation when it is learned
     that my will gives all my fortune to Faynie, save the amount set
     aside for you.

     “Horace Fairfax.”

“Well!  By all that’s wonderful, if this isn’t a pretty how-do-you-do.  Mrs. Fairfax and her girl are penniless, and I came so near marrying Claire.  I have found this thing out quite in the nick of time.  The girl is clever enough, but it takes money, and plenty of it, to make me put my head into the yoke of matrimony.

“I must find this will he speaks of.  It will be here unless the woman has been shrewd enough to destroy it, and women never are clever enough to burn their telltale bridges which lie behind them, and that’s how they get found out—­at last.

“I see through the whole thing now.  Mrs. Fairfax trumped up a will in favor of herself, a brilliant scheme.  I admire her grit immensely.  Ah, yes, here is the real will, in the same handwriting as the letter.  Yes, it gives all to his daughter Faynie.  And here is the spurious one, a good imitation, I admit, still an expert could easily detect the handwriting of Mrs. Fairfax from beginning to end—­signature and all.

“I think I will take charge of this one giving all the Fairfax wealth to Faynie.”

But he did not succeed in transferring it to his pocket, for like a flash it was snatched from his hand.

With a horrible oath, Kendale wheeled about.

One glance, and his eyes fairly bulged from their sockets, his face grew ashen white, his teeth chattered, and the blood in his veins seemed suddenly to turn to ice.

“Great Heaven!  It is a ghost!” he yelled at the top of his voice; “the ghost of Faynie!”

CHAPTER XXX.

At the last.

The sound of that hoarse, piercing, awful cry echoed and re-echoed to every portion of the house, and in less time than it takes to relate it, the servants in a body, headed by Mrs. Fairfax and Claire, were rushing toward the library, from whence the sound proceeded.

One glance as they reached the open doorways, and a cry of consternation broke from Mrs. Fairfax’s lips, which was faintly echoed by her daughter Claire.

The servants were too astounded at the sight that met their gaze to believe the evidence of their own eyes.

Mrs. Fairfax was the first to recover herself.

“What is the meaning of this!” she exclaimed, striding forward and facing Faynie and the horror-stricken man who stood facing her, his teeth chattering, as he muttered: