Part 63 (2/2)

”He must not know, of course.”

”And you expect me, a lawyer, to equivocate--to say one thing and mean another--to talk, as it were, with my tongue in my cheek? Oh, Miss Grover, what would become of the profession--I mean morally--if all clients were like you?”

”It would be much nearer the kingdom,” she said, with a laugh. ”I don't ask you to tell lies; I only ask you to hold your tongue.”

”But it is much easier said than done. You know this young man, and he ain't no fool either; and he has a pretty little way of asking point-blank questions. And if I ain't mistaken he can draw an inference as slick as most folks.”

”But lawyers never reveal secrets,” she said, smiling at him with her eyes.

”Nothing more quickly awakens suspicion than silence,” he said. ”And if he once gets on the trail----”

”He cannot possibly find me among eighty millions of people scattered over this continent.”

”But suppose he were to drop on you by accident?” and the old lawyer pretended to be looking at a picture on the other side of the room.

She tried her best to keep back the tell-tale blush, but it would come.

”Oh, we should shake hands,” she said, in a tone of indifference, ”and pretend to be surprised, of course, and then we should talk about what had happened in St. Gaved since I left.”

”He is a very handsome young man,” the lawyer said absently.

”Yes, he is rather good-looking, isn't he?” and the colour grew deeper on her usually pale face.

”I think you told me once you admired his spirit?”

”I admire him very much.”

”And if he calls to-morrow I must say no more than I have said to-day?”

”Say what you like so long as you keep my name out of it.”

”And you don't want to see him? And you wouldn't for the world that he should know you are alive in New York City?”

”For the present at any rate.”

”I think I understand,” he said, gravely, but a smile twinkled in the corner of his eye.

Meanwhile Rufus was busy reading through once more the papers he had obtained from his grandfather. He folded them up at length and replaced them in his portmanteau.

”It's not a bit of use waiting here,” he said to himself. ”That old lawyer knows no more about it than I do. I'll go westward to-night.”

The next morning found him in the busy town of Pittsburg, where he spent a couple of days making inquiries; then he pressed forward again until he reached Reboth, on the borders of Ohio.

Settling himself in the most comfortable hotel he could find he commenced his investigations. It was here his father had lived for several years. It was here he died. Reboth was only a village then. Its mineral wealth was unknown; its blast furnaces had not been lighted, its coal seams undiscovered. Joshua Sterne foresaw some of its possibilities, and invested all his savings, lived long enough to see the prospect of great wealth, and then almost suddenly pa.s.sed out of life.

After that followed years of litigation, Joshua Sterne had left no one who could fight his battles. The widow quickly yielded up the ghost, and the Rev. Reuben was too far away, too other-worldly, too lacking in business tact, and too suspicious of American lawyers and American ways to follow up any advantage that came to him.

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