“Don’t know me? Don’t know your old—or, more proper—don’t know your young friend?” asked the stranger, looking surprised. “Dear Ella knows me, I know she does. Oh, dearest Ella, I hope you have not forgotten me?”

“Forgotten you? Why, I don’t know as I ever knew you to forget you,” said Ella. “And no gentleman would speak to a lady in the manner you have, and you a perfect stranger. I am surprised at you, sir!”

The stranger put his handkerchief to his eyes to stop the flow of tears.

“So soon forgotten, so soon forgotten, oh! God oh! God, what shall I do? What shall I do?” he muttered as the tears fell from his eyes.

“I can tell you what to do, young man—you can go away from here as fast as possible. You are a wretched lunatic!” said Sowers peremptorily.

“Ella—dearest Ella—don’t you really know me? Must I be discarded in this style?” pleaded the stranger.

“If you call my sister by that name again, I’ll discard you, you scoundrel. I’ll discard you with my fist,” said Herbert angrily. “I believe you to be an impostor trying to make us think you are one of our acquaintances, but we are not all fools yet,” added Herbert wrathfully.

The young man who had been found in Ash Hollow—and proved to be William Reed by the name on his clothes—trembled as a leaf trembles before the wind.

“Indeed, I am not an impostor. There is Albert King in the carriage—”

“This is William Reed, sir, and I command you to leave my premises at once,” said Sowers sternly and cutting the stranger’s sentence short. The stranger looked amazed.

“That, William Reed!” said the stranger. “Impossible. It cannot be, for—”

His sentence was again left unfinished by Herbert saying:

“You are a lunatic, young man, and it is very unfortunate that we have no Lunatic Asylum in the immediate vicinity, or I would willingly escort you to it.”

“Herbert, I do not deserve this from you. Have you really forgotten me?” inquired the stranger. “I don’t want to get angry.”

“Remember you? Forgotten you? No sir, I never forget what I recollect,” answered Herbert jeeringly. “What is your business, stranger? Have you got a ‘Patent Post Hole Borer’?^[1] Or some other, some other useful machine that we can’t exist without?”

“I have a heart,” said the stranger, and he would have said more, but he was compelled to stop, for his words caused a hearty laugh to ring out from all present.

“You say you have a heart. Is it a patent one, or do you think we are solicitors of Patents and want us to get it patented for you? If that is the case, you can go at once,” said Hugh. “We are not patent agent[s], young man, so you had as well take your heart to some other place. I say, is it a patent on[e]?” inquired Hugh with a laugh.

“It is a patient one,” answered the stranger. There was another loud laugh from all present except the Ash Hollow gentleman. He seemed to be in a quandary since the appearance of the stranger—he never smiled, while the others were fairly bursting with laughter. His quietness attracted attention from Ella, and she turned to him and said lovingly, sweetly:

“What is the matter, dear Willie? Do you feel bad?” She looked at him inquiringly.

“Yes, dear, I do feel bad,” stammered the young man. “I have a bad headache this morning.”

“Well, we will go and sit on the porch until this patentee gets through with his patent heart,” asserted Ella, as she and the young man got out of the carriage. Mattie and also her mother “followed suit.”

They took seats on the porch and began joking about the young man with the “patent heart” or “patient one.”

“Willie, dear, what do you think of the new patent?” inquired Ella. “Do you think it will become a household necessity?”

“I hardly know what to think,” stammered the young man as he glanced uneasily at the “stranger” with the “patent heart.”

Mrs. Barton came out on the porch as she had been engaged again to keep house while the Sowers family were at the Springs.

“What is the row out there?” queried she. “Some patent agent, or what is he anyhow? Why, they are laughing at him!”

“Why, Mrs. Barton, he is a man with a patent heart, and he wants some of the Brookland gentlemen to be his solicitor,” said Mattie. “They are having as much fun out of him as they want.”

“Yes, they seem to, the way they are laughing. Who is he? And where did he come from?” inquired Mrs. Barton. Kent came up on the porch at this time, and Mrs. Sowers asked:

“What do you make of him, Mr. Kent? Is he really a lunatic?”

Kent did not answer immediately—he seemed to be studying an appropriate answer to make before he made one. “All I have got to say is that we will have fun here this morning,” said Kent significantly, after he had studied an appropriate answer to give. “You will all be astonished, I can assure you,” added he.

“Who is he anyhow? And in what way will we be astonished? Do you think he is Al King?” Mrs. Sowers asked the three questions all in a breath as she looked Kent in the face with intense interest.

“I will not venture an opinion as yet, for I never jump at conclusions like some people,” answered Kent. “He has not said where he came from yet. For ever time he starts to speak, the men laugh at him.”

“Well, he must have meant something, for he shed tears very profusely,” commented Ella. “And then to call me, ‘Dear Ella’! An impudent rascal! But where did he get my name? I’ll bet it is Albert King disguised. Mr. Kent, you had better see if he has [a] false beard or not, for you have been looking for Al a long time.”

At hearing Ella’s words, a look of blank terror came to the face of the young man beside her, and she was alarmed at his deathly paleness—he was trembling like an old man with the palsy, or chills.

“Why, Willie dear, you are so pale,” said Ella. “You had better lean your head on my shoulder. Or would you rather lay down?”

“I’d rather sit here, dear. I do not feel very bad. I hope I shall feel better after a while,” asserted the young man.

“Yes, you will feel better after a while,” thought Kent. “You will feel better because you will know your doom. You are in suspense now, but you will hear your doom before the sun shall reach the zenith in the heavens this third day of September. You are sick now, but you will be as well as I when you hear your doom. Ain’t I glad I have got them stopped, for I will now be sure to carry out my plans and finish up this business.”

While Kent was speaking his thoughts to himself, the young man beside Ella was thinking his “thunks” also.

“If I can only marry her so as to beat him, I shall be satisfied,” thought the young man. “But if he should return, the jig is up at once, for I will have to get out from here as quick as I can. This place ain’t large enough to both of us, so I will simply ‘cut.’”

Strange words for he who had been acknowledged by all the people of Brookland as the amiable William Reed—strange words for him to say to himself. And what made them more strange: he had a “him” and “her” as the subject of his conversation with himself.

“I have erred greatly, and I must not be caught in my own net,” continued he. “I must get out as soon as possible. I will abide my time, and if the worse comes, I will get up and get. I will go to Chicago again and stay there when I get there. I have been foiled in my plans, for I got such a terrible beating in Ash Hollow, but I always tried to make the best of my situation. Now comes my final overthrow.”

The Reader must not think the young man was talking aloud, for he was only speaking his thoughts to himself as he sat beside the graceful being who had promised to be his wife. Was she going to keep her promise? We will see in the course of time. We will listen at him a while longer.

“I just want to marry her to defeat him. I don’t love her a bit, for I have seen a nice young lady somewhere in this vicinity that would suit me to a T. She is a ravishingly beautiful young lady! And I must see her, get acquainted with her, and to cap the climax, I must marry her! Yes, I will, by Jove! I will stop my career—my wild career—and after begging forgiveness of my friends? No, not friend[s] now, but those who were once my friends—after obtaining forgiveness, I will settle down for life with my pretty little wife. That’s a rhyme, to be sure! But I am not turning poet, but turning from my evil ways—not quite turned. To return to my subject: if my friends—those people that minister to my comforts every day—knew what a wicked life I have led since they saw me leave Brookland, they would spurn me from them as they would a dog, I expect. Ah, if they knew I—”

There is no telling what would have been revealed in his reverie had he not been suddenly interrupted by Ella saying:

“Willie, the young stranger is dismounting. I expect he will come to the house to see if he can sell us a patent right for his patent heart. If he wants to sell his right, we must buy it for this and some of the adjoining counties. That is the way to get a fortune quick.” She paused for breath and then continued: “Willie, I believe you are going to have the chills or palsy one. You are trembling like a leaf when shaken by the wind. Do you feel worse than you did a while ago?” The young man was a pretty long while makin[g] a reply.

Finally he said as he tried to steady his nerves: “I feel pretty bad, but I don’t want to lie down until that stranger leaves, for he fills me with curiosity to find out who he is. He may be Albert King.”

The two last words fell as if unwillingly from his lips. He tried to look calm, but his efforts seemed to be all in vain.

“Yes, they are coming to the house,” said Ella. “And the stranger’s face ain’t got such a woebegone expression as it had when we were out there. Why, he is laughing!” Ella finished her sentence with an exclamation of surprise, for the stranger was indeed laughing, as if he was with his friends. Perhaps he was. We shall see.

“I want to make the revelation to you and reveal myself when I get on the porch where all can hear,” the stranger said as he walked along in apparent good humor. Was he to be as a Nemesis on the track of those who had done wrong? Time will tell. We must attend to present duties and let the future reveal what is secret now.

The young stranger walked up to the porch in company with Sowers, Herbert, and Hugh. He was still pleading his cause.

He, with the rest, walked slowly up the steps of the porch. His hopes ran high; his heart beat fast as he at last reached the landing. Kent’s hopes ran high too. “His heart was in his mouth,” to use a common expression. The stranger advanced to the middle of the porch and, taking his hat in his hand, he made a profound bow—then clearing his throat as if he was going to be orator for the occasion.

Presently he said in a clear voice: “Friends and enemies, you have ridiculed me because I said you were my friends and I yours. I was greatly surprised when I found out you did not know me, but I resolved to brave the tempest and convince you all that I am what I say I am. I am, and have always been called, William Reed.”