CHAPTER
I. [PARTING OF THE WAYS]
II. [OAKLANDS]
III. [TRIALS]
IV. [INFLUENCE]
V. [THE GREAT FIGHT]
VI. [OLD FRIENDS]
VII. [BOB IN TROUBLE]
VIII. [DISCOVERY]
IX. [A BOND OF UNION]
X. [FIRE]
XI. [AN OLD CRIME]
XII. [HAPPINESS]
THE SECRET OF OAKLANDS
CHAPTER I
PARTING OF THE WAYS
"Father, what is the matter?"
The question came in sharp tones of distress from a young girl who at that moment entered the breakfast-room. Quickly she sprang to her father's side and began chafing his cold hands, as she gazed with fear-stricken eyes into the beloved face before her.
Cyril Woodford made no response, but sat as if stunned, staring with apparently unseeing eyes at the newspaper before him, which his nerveless fingers had just dropped. His face was ashen, and there was a nervous twitching about his lips as he tried to moisten them with his tongue.
"Father dear, speak—tell me why you look like this! Has something terrible happened?"
No answer came in words, but with a shaking finger the man pointed to the heading of a column in the newspaper in front of him.