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Rh "What is your interest in this matter, may I ask?" demanded Frank.

"Distant relative, guardian, best friend. Sad case. Left on my hands, cared for him, spent my means educating him. Repaid kindness by robbing me."

"That is a falsehood!"

Like a thunder clap the words sounded out. The waiting stranger In the next room spoke them. As he appeared in the open doorway, the man whose veracity he challenged looked as though confronted by an accusing nemesis.

"Welmore!" he almost screamed. He turned white as a sheet and cowered back.

"Yes, Jasper Lane—false friend, perjurer and thief," flashed out the other. "You cared for Dick Welmore? You expended your means on him? Where Is the two thousand dollars I left you for his education?"

"Keep him off—don't let him touch me," pleaded the other man.

"Pah!" coarsely uttered the reformatory man, giving Lane a disgusted push to one side. "Mister," he continued, addressing Lane's accuser, "If there's been crooked business here, we didn't know it."

"There has been," affirmed the other. "My