upon the girl, with suave compliments at one moment, and in the next turned to Leach behind him with what was almost a coarse threat.

"Why the devil don't you wait on your young mistress?" he snapped. "What do you think I keep you here for? What do I pay you for?"

He turned to the table again, and, looking down the length of it, I saw the woman swiftly clench and unclench her hands behind him, as though she would have struck him. And if ever I saw murder in a face I saw it then; yet she looked not at the doctor, but at the bowed head of the girl beside me.

"Come—move—stir yourself!" cried the man, bringing down his fist with a bang on the table beside him. "Don't wait for the servants to carry things; carry them yourself. Take this dish to your mistress—Miss Debora Matchwick."

It was the first time I had heard the girl's name in full; but I took but little notice of it then, so interested was I in watching the little scene that was going forward. While the doctor sat looking at the girl, I saw the woman behind him draw herself up, and I saw her nostrils dilate; then she seemed to swoop to the table, and to catch up the dish he had indicated. She moved round slowly to where the girl sat, and purposely handed the dish from the wrong side. And down came Bardolph Just's fist again on the table.

"The other side, you jade!" he roared; and with a glance at him she moved round, and presented it to the girl in the proper fashion. And the face that bent above the fair hair of the girl was the face of a devil—of a soul in torment.

"I want nothing, thank you," said Debora in a low voice.

"Come, my dear child, we shall have you pining away to a shadow if you don't eat," broke in the doctor, with a mocking smile. "Is it possible that you are fretting over something—hungering for someone? We must have a private talk about this after breakfast; you must confide your troubles to me. And may I ask," he went on, with bitter politeness, as he turned to the other woman, "may I ask why you are standing in that absurd attitude, when your mistress tells you she wants nothing?"

The woman Leach turned away abruptly, and set down the dish. Debora had risen from the table, as if to make her escape, and the other woman, after a quick glance at her, was preparing to go from the room also. But her humiliation was not yet completed; the doctor called her back.

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