Ferris must not know.

It is for my life, for Irma, and for my fortune that I struggle now.

My God! Whom can I trust now, and they have poisoned Alice's mind against me.

I see their damned villainy.

Poor Little Sister! Another man's wife now.
She will never know." In his lover's second sight Randall Clayton had really stumbled on the artful measure by which the old Croesus had deliberately shifted Alice Worthington's love for her old-time playmate.
Over his gold-bowed spectacles, Hugh Worthington, the "surviving partner," had sadly read aloud the details of Randall Clayton's "New York career." "Forget him, Alice," the old man sternly said.
"He has fallen on evil ways." "And yet you still keep him in your employ, father ?" answered the clear-eyed girl, her wondering glances gleaming out under a brow of truth.
"Yes, yes!" harshly said the startled old miser.