"--Holy Bible
CAPITOLA THE MADCAP
SEQUEL TO
THE HIDDEN HAND
CHAPTER I.
THE ORPHAN'S TRIAL
"We met ere yet the world had come
To wither up the springs of youth,
Amid the holy joys of home,
And in the first warm blush of youth.
We parted as they never part,
Whose tears are doomed to be forgot;
Oh, by what agony of heart.
Forget me not!--forget me not!"
--Anonymous.
At nine o'clock the next morning Traverse went to the library to
keep his tryst with Colonel Le Noir.
Seated in the doctor's leathern chair, with his head thrown back,
his nose erect and his white and jeweled hand caressing his
mustached chin, the colonel awaited the young man's communication.
With a slight bow Traverse took a chair and drew it up to the table,
seated himself and, after a little hesitation, commenced, and in a
modest and self-respectful manner announced that he was charged with
the last verbal instructions from the doctor to the executor of his
will.
Colonel Le Noir left off caressing his chin for an instant, and,
with a wave of his dainty hand, silently intimated that the young
man should proceed.
Traverse then began and delivered the dying directions of the late
doctor, to the effect that his daughter Clara Day should not be
removed from the paternal mansion, but that she should be suffered
to remain there, retaining as a matronly companion her old friend
Mrs.
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