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90 CHAPTER XII

WHEEL WITHIN WHEEL

drove home in a dull fury, and was met by Claire upon the steps. Her heart sank at his face. He passed her without a word. She followed him into his library, and there besought him to tell her what had happened now.

“Oh, nothing. I wash my hands of a young demon; that’s all.”

“Tom Erichsen?”

“Yes.”

“You have changed your mind!”

“I have.”

And he told her how the prisoner had treated the attorney he had sent him that very afternoon; committing a brutal and unprovoked assault upon the very man who was there to save his life, if that had been possible. It was not. The villain would hang, and rightly too. But there was gratitude! There was a young tiger in human shape!

Claire kept her head, and gradually Mr. Harding cooled down. Then she asked questions, and discovered that it was not the family lawyer who had been so grossly handled, but one whose name was new to her.

“Hattersley never touches criminal work,” said her father; “besides, I should have been ashamed to ask him. No; I went to the very man for the job; and this is all the thanks I get!”

“Did he know it was you?”

“No; I sent word I would give any money, but not my name.”