Travers warned me on the same day that we became engaged."
A dark flood of indignant blood rushed to Stafford's forehead.
"The man is an unscrupulous adventurer--no doubt he has safeguarded
his own interest carefully enough," he exclaimed bitterly.
"You are quite right. His wife has all the money, and he has taken
care that it should be well tied up and out of reach. That is what my
father did."
He turned to her again.
"Your father?"
"Yes, my father," she repeated, meeting his eyes gravely and
unflinchingly. "He tried to do what Travers did. But he wasn't quite
so clever. He ran too close to the wind, as he said himself, and they
put him in prison. He died there."
He stood looking at her with a new interest. He too, was beginning to
understand. The bitter line about the mouth was not the expression of
a hard, unfeeling heart after all, then, and the sharp, mocking laugh
which had jarred so often on his ears was not the echo of a shallow,
worthless character? They were no more than the deep wounds left after
a rough battle with a world that knows no pity for those branded with
inherited shame and dishonor. He had misjudged her. There were
unlimited possibilities of nobility and goodness in the beautiful face
lifted to his. But he said nothing of the thoughts that flashed
through his mind. In moments of crisis we always speak of what is
least important.
"And you managed to keep it a secret in Marut?" he asked.
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