Mr. Dunbar had met many lovely, gracious, high-bred women, yet escaped heart whole; and even the nobility and sweetness of his pretty fiancee, enhanced by the surrounding glamour of heiresship, failed to touch the flood gates of tender love that a pauper’s hand had suddenly unloosed, to sweep as a destroying torrent through the fair garden of his most cherished hopes.  What was the spell exerted by the young convict when she grappled his heart, and in the havoc of her own life carried down all the possibilities of his future peace?  Personal ambition, calculating mercenary selfishness had melted away in the volcanic madness that seized him, and to his own soul he acknowledged that his dominant and supreme wish was to gather in his arms and hold forever the condemned woman, who wore with such sublime serenity the livery of felony.

After all, have we misread our classics?  Had not Homer a prevision of the faith that Aphrodites’ altar belonged in the Temple of the Fates?

Beryl refolded the paper and looked up.  In the face so close to hers, she saw all the yearning tenderness, the over-mastering love that had convulsed his nature, and before the pleading magnetic eyes that essayed to probe her soul, hers fell.

As out of a cloud, some burst of sunlight striking through the ruby vestments of apostles in a cathedral window falls aslant and suddenly crimsons the marble features of a sculptured angel guarding the high altar, so unexpectedly a vivid blush dyed the girl’s cheeks.  Her lips trembled; she swept her hand across her eyes as though blotting out some fascination upon which it was not her privilege to dwell; then the glow faded, she moved back on the bench, and leaned her head against the wall.

“Where are the bonds and other securities described in this paper?”

“In a compartment of the safety deposit vault of the—­Bank, of which Gen’l Darrington was a large stockholder and director.  His box was opened last week in presence of his adopted son, and we hoped to find perhaps a duplicate of the lost will; but there was not even a memorandum to indicate his last wishes.”

“Can you tell me whether Mr. Prince Darrington will take any legal steps to recover the legacy which the loss of the will appears to have cancelled?”

“He certainly has no such intention.”

“Are you quite sure of his views?”

“Absolutely sure, having talked with him this morning.  I speak authoritatively.”

“He was entirely dependent on Gen’l Darrington?”

“Wholly so with regard to pecuniary resources.”

“At present he is as much a beggar as I was that day when I first saw X—?  Is it true that want of money obliged him to quit Germany before he obtained the university degree, for which his studies were intended to fit him?”

“Strictly true.  He sorely laments his inability to complete the course of study, and hopes at some future day to return and reap the distinction which he feels sure awaits him in scientific fields.”