“I may do so after I have the ten thousand dollars in my pocket.  That was rather a shameful business, though; wasn’t it?  I never had a very tender conscience, but I must own to having suffered a few twinges for my part in the transaction.  He received over a hundred thousand dollars for the land?”

“Yes; and that clear of some heavy fees that you and I claimed for services rendered.”

“Humph!  I’m not quite paid yet.  But, touching the child, Mr. Grind:  don’t you know any thing about her?”

“Nothing, personally.”

“What was it Jasper paid for the tract of land?”

“One thousand dollars.”

“Paid it into his own hands as the child’s guardian.”

“Yes; that was the simple transaction.”

“Has the public never made a guess at the real truth of this matter?”

“Never, so far as my knowledge goes.  There have been some vague whisperings—­but no one has seemed to comprehend the matter.”

“The purchase was made in your name, was it not?”

“Yes.”

“That is, you bought from Jasper as the child’s guardian; and afterward sold it back to him.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you hold on to it when it was fairly in your hands?  I only wish I had been in your place?”

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders, but did not commit himself by acknowledging that he had, more than once, regretted his omission to claim the property while legally in his hands, and defy Jasper to wrest it from him.

Leaving these two men, whose relation to Jasper is sufficiently apparent to the reader’s mind, we will return to the merchant, whom we left half-stupefied at the bold demand of an associate in wrong-doing.  A long time passed ere his activity of mind returned.  While he sat, brooding—­dreamily—­over what had just passed, a little daughter came into the parlour, and seeing him, came prattling merrily to his side.  But in attempting to clamber upon his knee, she was pushed away rudely, and with angry words.  For a few moments she stood looking at him, her little breast rising and falling rapidly; then she turned off, and went slowly, and with a grieving heart, from the room.

Jasper sighed heavily as the child passed out of sight; and rising up, began moving about with a slow pace, his eyes cast upon the floor.  The more he dwelt upon the visit of Martin—­whom, in his heart, he had wished dead—­the more uneasy he felt, and the more he regretted having let him depart in anger.  He would give twice ten thousand dollars rather than meet the exposure which this man could make.