“I do not understand you.”

“Well, you see this friend of hers—­I must again ask pardon for associating her name with his so frequently, be reassured I do it with pain—­as I have already remarked, has ingratiated himself into her good opinion, and knowing me to be in the way of the accomplishment of his wishes, he has prejudiced her against me, and done so in such a manner as to induce the belief in her mind that I am his bitterest enemy, and would use any means to do him an injury or blacken his character.  Hence, if she were to know that anything came through me, she would at once set it down as false and slanderous, which would drive her farther from me and nearer to the other, thereby hastening the very calamity we would avert.”

“I see you are right, having given more attention to the subject than I have.  I will never mention your name in connection with this matter, to either my daughter or any other, without your permission.”

“Thank you.  Leaving all after action on your part to be as your judgment shall dictate, I have nothing more left me to do in this trying interview, than to reveal the name of the intriguer—­it is Charles Hadley.”

“Charles Hadley!” exclaimed the father in astonishment.

“It is none other than he.”

“I could hardly have believed it of him.”

“Nor I. Such depth of depravity is truly inconceivable to an honorable mind.”

“I remember now, he has been somewhat familiar with Eveline; but I had no idea the beggarly dog would dare think of marrying her.  I must see to this immediately.”

“Remember to be cautious for my sake.”

“Don’t fear on that ground.”

Thus the interview ended, Duffel having accomplished more by it than he had expected.  The more Mr. Mandeville thought on the subject, the more thoroughly he became convinced of Hadley’s guilt.  Did not Duffel’s statement correspond precisely with that of his daughter? and how could it be so without being true?  It was an impossibility.  The more he reflected, the deeper became his conviction of the guilt of Hadley and of the existence of a plot to defame Duffel.  Another idea suggested itself:  “Was his daughter an intentional or an unintentional party to these transactions?  Might not her dislike of Duffel and her preference for Hadley induce her to seek for some means to accomplish the disgrace of the former?” While he was weighing this supposition in the balance of his mind, he chanced to see his daughter walking with Hadley, and their manner of conversation and the evident good-will existing between them, led him, in his bewildered state, to conclude that Eveline was not as free from implication as she might be.  After harboring this thought for a day or two longer, he charged her with the crime of confederating to injure Duffel, as already related.  Had he known that Duffel’s story was made so fitly apt, simply because he had basely eavesdropped and sacrilegiously listened to the sanctitude of a conversation at the domestic hearth, how different would have been the result!