myself in observing what this not-easily-to-be-understood man would say and do in this sudden crisis.

We were not long left in doubt.[74]

[74]

"Doctor," he began, in a slow, hesitating tone, well calculated to produce the effect he desired, "we unfortunately already know who wore a yellow domino this evening. My brother Joe——"

"Hush!" implored his uncle, laying a hand on his nephew's arm with a quick look of distress not lost on the doctor.

"Brother?" repeated the latter. "Pardon me, I did not know——Ah, but I do remember now to have heard that Mr. Benson had another son."

The face of Hartley grew graver and graver. "My brother has been alienated from my father for some time, so you have never seen him here. But to-night he hoped, or made me think he hoped, to effect a reconciliation; so I managed, with my sister, to provide him with the domino necessary to insure him an entrance here. Indeed, I did more; I showed him a private door by which he could find his way into the library, never suspecting any harm could come of son and father meeting even in this surreptitious way. I—I loved my brother, and notwithstanding the past, had confidence[75] in him. Nor can I think now he had any thing to do with the——" Here the voice of this inimitable actor broke in well-simulated distress. He sank on a chair and put his hands before his face.

[75]

The doctor had no reason to doubt this man. He therefore surveyed him with a look of grave regard.

"Mr. Benson," said he, "you have my profoundest sympathy. A tragedy like this in a family of such eminent respectability, is enough to overwhelm the stoutest heart. If your brother is here——"

"Dr. Travis," broke in the other, rising and grasping the physician's hand with an appearance of manly impulse impressive in one usually so stern and self contained, "you are, or were, my father's friend; can you or will you be ours? Dreadful as it is to think, my father undoubtedly committed suicide. He had a great dread of this day. It is the anniversary of an occurrence harrowing for him to remember. My brother—you see I shall have to break the secrecy of years—was detected by him in the act of robbing his desk three years[76] ago to-night, and upon each and every recurrence of the day, has returned to his father's house to beg for the forgiveness and restoration to favor which he lost by 

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