Well-nigh exhausted from the mental and bodily strain, Jessie arrived at her home unfit for anything but rest. Then she answered her enemy's letter. Did she reproach him with his life-long injustice? Did she demand the old home in exchange for the service she had rendered? Or at least the privilege of buying it? She merely wrote;— "I have been to Washington and secured a reprieve pending further sifting of evidence." Ben Garrett was saved and the close view of the gallows sobered him at last. He married the daughter of a Texas ranchman and Jessie heard of him no more. Five years passed away when on a gloomy afternoon in the autumn, Jessie Forrester, now a woman of thirty, and wearing her years and honors well, was sitting at her desk in an elegant [pg 80] sanctum, absorbed in the fate of two lovers whose history she was creating. [pg 80] Her door opened and a grave, handsome man with a bearded face stood before her. "Madam," he said briefly "you once did my brother a great favor. I am here to thank you for it." His brother? A favor? Ah, she had been doing favors for many in all these years. She did not remember any particular one; it was an every day matter. Every mail brought petitions and she never turned a deaf ear. The doing of favors brought its own reward. She looked steadily at the stranger, and he felt again in his inmost soul the gaze of those large brown eyes seen once before dilated with childish terror. "My name is Garrett," he explained, as briefly as before. Garrett—that hated name. Involuntarily her eyes fell upon the work before her, while a warm flush mantled her cheeks. "May I sit down for five minutes?" She again raised her eyes without speaking, and he seated himself, not looking at but beyond her as if her steady gaze unmanned him. "Madam, my parents are dead. I have come to offer you Deering Castle at your own price. I should not presume to suggest it as a gift. It is yours if you wish it. I have heard so [pg 81] often," and here his voice fell for very shame, "that you wanted it. It was not then mine to dispose of; now there is no
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