as if they had sprung out of the earth.  It is also generally believed that he makes all the fine counterfeit money with which this country is flooded, and that he does the work with his own delicate, white hands.  Yet not a dollar has ever been traced to him, although its regular sale goes steadily on at a fixed rate of sixteen bad dollars for one good dollar.  It is generally believed, too, that he keeps his money, both the good and the bad, buried somewhere in the forest near his house, presumably for the double purpose of guarding against robbery by his tools and against surprise by the officers of the law.  This, of course, is also mere speculation; nobody really knows anything about what he does.  I only know that his house is a bare log hut, which is singular enough, seeing what a fine gentleman he is, and what luxury he has surrounded the girl with.  But I know that to be true, because accident once took me to his house, and greater courtesy I never found anywhere, though I was not invited to come again.  It is known that he owns a fleet of flatboats, and one of them is usually seen waiting near Duff’s Fort when horses are stolen, and it is always gone before the dawn of the next day; but there is no proof of this, either.  Boats belonging to other people have a hard time getting past Duff’s Fort.  More often than not, they are never seen or heard of after reaching that fatal point, and the passengers vanish off the face of the earth.  That is what happened to Ruth’s parents, as nearly as any one but Alston knows.  Most likely he knows nothing more.”

“And knowing this, she loves him, and the judge and his nephew trust him?”

“The child doesn’t know anything about it.  Who would tell her?  He is like her father—­he could not have been more tender of her had she been his own child.  There is nothing strange in her loving him; it would be far more strange if she did not.  She is a gentle, loving nature, and he has done everything to win her love, and you know what he is.”

“How can any creature in human form be so utterly unnatural—­so wholly a monster?  How can he endure to see her, much less profess fondness for her, knowing what he has done?”

“I have thought a good deal about that, and I have never been able to make up my mind.  You see we don’t know that he has done anything wrong.  Yet it may be an unconscious expiation.  Who knows?  The human heart is a mysterious thing.  But it is most likely that he simply began to love her when she was a baby, just because she was so lovely that he couldn’t help it.  She won all hearts in her cradle—­the little witch.  I remember very well how she used to keep me from my work, by curling her rose leaf of a hand around one of my rough fingers, before she could talk.”

“But why—­loving her—­should he wish to marry her against her will?”

“We do not know that it is against her will.  That is to say, I know nothing of the kind, and I have no reason even to think it.”