Without saying anything to any one, on the morning of her twenty-first birthday she repaired to Mr. Felton’s office, and with a resolute face and steady hand, signed the papers that gave to Earle Wayne ten thousand dollars, together with a year’s interest, even as she had said she would do.
These papers she desired should be taken to him at once, and in case he refused to accept the bequest, Mr. Felton was authorized to safely invest the money and retain the papers in his own possession until they should be called for.
Earle firmly refused to touch a cent of it, saying his business was fast increasing, and he did not need it.
It was therefore taken by Mr. Felton to the First National Bank, deposited in his name, and left to accumulate.
CHAPTER XIV
AN INTERVIEW INTERRUPTED
One day Earle was looking over his papers and arranging them more systematically, when he came across a package containing the memoranda and evidence used during that “knotty case” wherein he was so successful.
These had been wrapped in a newspaper, and had remained untouched since that time.
As he was looking them over, and considering whether it would be best to keep them any longer or destroy them, his eye caught sight of a paragraph, or name rather, in the paper that instantly riveted his attention, and, with staring eyes and paling cheek, he read it eagerly through.
Then he turned to look at the date of the paper.
It was the very same that he had bought that night when he had been so forlorn and dreary, when for a week no one had come to him to get him to do even so much as a little copying, when he had counted his money and discovered all he possessed in the world was a little over two dollars.