"Yes, her most of all, Mike."
"Well, I think she need not worry any more about the poor fellow. I am sure, from all I hear down there, that he will soon be on his feet. That old lady, Mrs. Keith, fairly hung on to me, Mr. Charles. I can hold my own with the average man in a shady deal of this sort, but not a woman out of her head with gratitude and curiosity combined. Why, sir, I thought once that she'd have me arrested to force me to tell her who sent the money. It was only by lying straight out that I got away from her clutches. I told her, I did, sir, that I'd go down-town and ask permission to let the cat out of the bag and return. That was the only thing that saved me. I'd have been there yet but for that little trick."
"So she doesn't know that, anyway?" Charles said.
"No, sir, she hasn't the slightest idea. She tried to make me say that I did it, but of course I couldn't allow that, sir. So I simply stuck to it that I'd been sent by some one else—a friend, a well-wisher and—you know what you said to tell her."
"And what are your present plans?" Charles asked.
"I must return home, sir. I want to stop in New York and see my mother, and then go back to Boston. I have been away as long as I can manage it now, sir."
"You have been of great service to me, Mike," Charles said. It was growing darker now. The twilight was thickening, the yellow glow in the western sky above the mountain-tops was fading away. They strolled down a path toward the house. "Yes, Mike," Charles continued, "no man on earth could have done me such a valuable service. If you hadn't come that poor fellow would have died and half a dozen persons would have been stricken down with grief and overwhelmed with disgrace."
"And the young lady—the beautiful young lady, sir—you say she would have suffered most of all?"
"Yes, most of all, Mike. But you mustn't go away with the thought that—that there is anything of a serious nature between me and her, for there isn't. No one else here knows the truth, but I have told her—given her to understand—that something is hanging over me which will forever keep us apart. She belongs to an old and honorable family, Mike, and I am what you see me now in these old clothes; I am a servant and can never be anything else. So you are going back? Well, I want you, if you can, to see Mason in New York and thank him for sending you to me; and as for the people at home—"
"I was going to ask what I might do in regard to them, Mr. Charles," Michael said, suddenly, as Charles paused. "Your brother and your uncle, who lives with us now, will not ask questions, but the missis—she will. She is sure to, the first opportunity."