After listening to this naïve confession he did just what any sensible man would have done in his place—took her in his arms and kissed her over and over again, and ending up by a request that she would name the “happy day.”
And, as all obedient girls do, she “referred him to her father.”
Father in this case was not a stern tyrant, and acquiesced heartily and gave them his blessing—and a check for a hundred thousand the day they were married!
Demas Lorton, Luke and Helen Lorton were tried, convicted and sentenced to prison for the longest possible terms.
Nick’s reawakened anxiety in regard to Mr. Field was, long before this happy event, finally and fully relieved.
Two weeks after Lorton’s trial and sentence, an unknown man was killed by a fall from the elevated railroad station at Thirty-fourth Street.
Nick Carter happened to go to the morgue on other business, and the keeper, knowing his familiarity with members of the criminal class, invited him to view the body.
Nick identified it at a glance.
It was Elmer Greer!
“So,” thought Nick, “this is his end. It’s funny! I never knew a criminal who led a happy life. From the first fall, jail and the hangman’s noose haunt their waking and their sleeping hours. If they don’t die in jail or the poorhouse, they meet a fate similar to this of Greer’s. It’s incomprehensible to me why men should ever take up a life of such misery and unhappiness!”