The dear voice faltered, and the tears flashed into Miss Pat's eyes as she confronted, me in the woodland path.
"Oh, no! It's not so bad as that!" I pleaded.
"I tell you she has no soul! You will find it out to your cost. She is made for nothing but mischief in this world!"
"I am your humble servant, Miss Holbrook."
"Then," she began doubtfully, and meeting my eyes with careful scrutiny, "I am going to ask you to do one thing more for me, that we may settle all this disagreeable affair. I am going to pay Henry his money; but before I do so I must find my brother Arthur, if he is still alive. That may have some difficulties."
She looked at me as though for approval; then went on.
"I have been thinking of all these matters carefully since I came here. Henry has forfeited his right to further inheritance by his contemptible, cowardly treatment of me; but I am willing to forgive all that he has done. He was greatly provoked; it would not be fair for me to hold those things against him. As between him and Arthur; as between him and Arthur—"
Her gaze lay across the twinkling lake, and her voice was tremulous. She spoke softly as though to herself, and I caught phrases of the paragraph of her father's will that Gillespie had read to me: "Dishonor as it is known, accounted and reckoned among men;"—and she bowed her head on the veranda rail a moment; then she rose suddenly and smiled bravely through her tears.
"Why can't you find Arthur for me? Ah, it you could only find him there might be peace between us all; for I am very old, Larry. Age without peace is like life without hope. I can not believe that Arthur is dead. I must see him again. Larry, if he is alive find him and tell him to come to me."
"Yes," I said; "I know where he is!"