“The sorest man I ever saw,” laughed Jack. “He had plenty of good money on McGilvay. I’ll bet the biggest part of what I won came from his pocket.”
“Then I’ll see if I cannot do some good with the stuff,” said Merry.
An hour later, in his room, he handed the money to Harry Collins, whose emotion choked him so that he could not utter his thanks or express his gratitude.
“Not a word now,” said Merry. “My boy, to get that money and save you I did something no man could lead me to do for myself. Use it to save yourself—and your mother. Perhaps it was more for the sake of your mother, whom I never saw, that I did it, than it was for yours. My mother is—dead!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I have seen that face before,” declared Frank.
“I thought I had at first glance,” confessed Jack Diamond. “That’s why I stopped and stared. She must have thought me a chump.”
The two friends were at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. They had been sauntering along, when the attention of both was attracted by a strangely handsome face in the passing throng. A pair of midnight eyes flashed them one swift glance as the girl hurried on. Jack stopped in his tracks.
“Merriwell,” he said after a moment, “you can’t guess of whom she reminded me?”
“She does look something like her. She has a fine figure. I am sure I have seen her before.”
“What made it seem more like Juliet,” muttered the Virginian, “was that she appeared startled by the sight of one or both of us.”
“I was startled,” confessed Frank, gazing after the retreating figure, “for it seemed to be the face of somebody I knew.”
The girl had been swallowed up in the throng on the south side of the street.
“She was like Juliet,” murmured Jack; “though not so handsome.”
“She was quite as handsome as Juliet Reynolds,” Frank thought, but he did not speak the words aloud. Instead, he said: “Let’s turn back, Jack. I’d like to get another glimpse of her.”
“You?” exclaimed the Virginian, in surprise. “Why, I thought Elsie——”
“There are a few things you do not know, old chum,” said Merry, forcing a smile, which was not quite free from regret and pain.
“But Elsie Bellwood is in love with you, Merriwell,” Diamond insisted. “I know it, old man.”