her to know that this was the person to whom her husband's last
known thought had been directed.

Parvis, civilly, but without vain preamble,--in the manner of a
man who has his watch in his hand,--had set forth the object of
his visit. He had "run over" to England on business, and finding
himself in the neighborhood of Dorchester, had not wished to
leave it without paying his respects to Mrs. Boyne; without
asking her, if the occasion offered, what she meant to do about
Bob Elwell's family.

The words touched the spring of some obscure dread in Mary's
bosom. Did her visitor, after all, know what Boyne had meant by
his unfinished phrase? She asked for an elucidation of his
question, and noticed at once that he seemed surprised at her
continued ignorance of the subject. Was it possible that she
really knew as little as she said?

"I know nothing--you must tell me," she faltered out; and her
visitor thereupon proceeded to unfold his story. It threw, even
to her confused perceptions, and imperfectly initiated vision, a
lurid glare on the whole hazy episode of the Blue Star Mine. Her
husband had made his money in that brilliant speculation at the
cost of "getting ahead" of some one less alert to seize the
chance; the victim of his ingenuity was young Robert Elwell, who
had "put him on" to the Blue Star scheme.

Parvis, at Mary's first startled cry, had thrown her a sobering
glance through his impartial glasses.