He was a man of gentlemanly instincts, and was a skilful engraver, who had worked in the Government Printing-office at Washington for several years.

There he was extravagant, got into debt, yielded to the temptation to make a fortune easily, and became a counterfeiter.

The present undertaking was his first experience in that line of wickedness, and he was already heartily sick of it.

While on the island, where his part of the work was engraving and printing, he had not realized the contemptible nature of his unlawful business.

He had merely been filled with pride in his own skill, which feeling his associates took good care to encourage by artful praise.
When he met Sabella, it flashed across him for the first time that his own little girl, far away in an eastern city, was the daughter of a criminal, and from that moment he was a changed man.