“A week or ten days.”

“I don’t know how I am to live in the meantime,” said Cook, anxiously.  “I am penniless, but for the money you have just given me.”

“At what price can you obtain board?”

“I know of a decent house where I can obtain board and a small room for five dollars a week.”

“Here are twelve dollars.  This will pay for two weeks’ board, and give you a small sum besides.  What is the address?”

Cook mentioned a number on a street by the river.

Carl took it down in a notebook with which he had provided himself.

“When I return to Albany,” he said, “I will call there at once.”

“You won’t forget me?”

“No; I shall be even more anxious to meet you than you will be to meet me.  The one to whom your former wife is married is very near and dear to me, and I cannot bear to think that he has been so wronged and imposed upon!”

“Very well, sir!  I shall wait for you with confidence.  If I can get back from my former wife the money she robbed me of, I can get on my feet again, and take a respectable position in society.  It is very hard for a man dressed as I am to obtain any employment.”

Looking at his shabby and ragged suit, Carl could readily believe this statement.  If he had wished to employ anyone he would hardly have been tempted to engage a man so discreditable in appearance.  “Be of good courage, Mr. Cook,” he said, kindly.  “If your story is correct, and I believe it is, there are better days in store for you.”

“Thank you for those words,” said Cook, earnestly.  “They give me new hope.”

CHAPTER XXXIII.

From Albany to Niagara.

Carl took the afternoon train on the following day for Buffalo.  His thoughts were busy with the startling discovery he had made in regard to his stepmother.  Though he had never liked her, he had been far from imagining that she was under the ban of the law.  It made him angry to think that his father had been drawn into a marriage with such a woman—­that the place of his idolized mother had been taken by one who had served a term at Sing Sing.

Did Peter know of his mother’s past disgrace? he asked himself.  Probably not, for it had come before his birth.  He only wondered that the secret had never got out before.  There must be many persons who had known her as a prisoner, and could identify her now.  She had certainly been fortunate with the fear of discovery always haunting her.  Carl could not understand how she could carry her head so high, and attempt to tyrannize over his father and himself.