"Certainly," she exclaimed, indignantly. "Even if he is innocent he must
face the charge."

"Do you still entertain the possibility of his innocence?"

"I do," she said boldly, and looked him full in the face. His eyelids
drooped with a quiver. "Don't you?"

"I have hoped against hope," he replied, in a voice faltering with
emotion. "Poor old Everard! But I am afraid there is no room for doubt.
Oh, this wicked curse of money--tempting the noblest and the best
of us."

[Illustration: "SHE DID NOT REPULSE HIM."]

The weeks rolled on. Gradually she found herself seeing more and more of
Tom Peters, and gradually, strange to say, he grew less repulsive. From
the talks they had together, she began to see that there was really no
reason to put faith in Everard; his criminality, his faithlessness, were
too flagrant. Gradually she grew ashamed of her early mistrust of
Peters; remorse bred esteem, and esteem ultimately ripened into feelings
so warm, that when Tom gave freer vent to the love that had been visible
to Clara from the first, she did not repulse him.

It is only in books that love lives for ever. Clara, so her father
thought, showed herself a sensible girl in plucking out an unworthy
affection and casting it from her heart. He invited the new lover to his
house, and took to him at once. Roxdal's somewhat supercilious manner
had always jarred upon the unsophisticated corn merchant. With Tom the