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Rh told him that he was not to bring any of it to you. It's not—a thing that a man like Ben covered up for twenty years till it drove him crazy is sure not to be a thing for a girl to know. Conrad seems to have paid no attention to me. But I should think by this time he ought to begin to suspect what sort of thing he's going to turn up. I don't know; but I certainly suspect—Ben leaving everything to that boy, whom no one had heard of, and the sort of thing which has come up since. It's certainly not going to be anything pleasant for any of us, Connie—for you, or your father, or for me, or for anybody who'd cared for Ben, or had been associated with him. Least of all, I should say, would it prove anything pleasant for Conrad. Ben ran away from it, because he knew what it was; why doesn't this fellow let him stay away from it?"

"He—I mean Alan, Henry," she said, "isn't thinking about himself in this; he isn't thinking about his father. He believes—he is certain now—that, whatever his father did, he injured some one; and his idea in going ahead—he hasn't told it to me that way, but I know—is to find out the whole matter in order that he may make recompense. It's a terrible thing, whatever happened. He knows that, and I know; but he wants—and I want him for his sake, even for Uncle Benny's sake—to see it through."

"Then it's a queer concern you've got for Ben! Let it alone, I tell you."

She stood flushed and perplexed, gazing at him. She never had seen him under stronger emotion.

"You misunderstood me once, Connie!" he appealed. "You'll understand me now!"

She had been thinking about that injustice she had