be solidified. I have great power in regard to your fortune now; I should have greater powers then."

"It's the fortune that tempts you!" she exclaimed, starting to her feet. "God forgive me for saying it, but my father must have been mad when he made up his mind to place me in your care. I hate you—but I'm not afraid of you. I hate you!"

Bardolph Just stepped forward quickly, and took her prisoner in his arms. I had made a sudden movement, recklessly enough, to run round the summer-house and spring upon the man, as I heard her give a little gasping cry, when there came a strange interruption; and it came from outside and from inside the summer-house almost at the same moment.

I had heard the doctor say, over and over again, with a sort of savage triumph, as he held her, "You shall love me! You shall love me! You shall love me!" and I had made that movement of which I speak, when there broke in the sound of someone singing, in a high querulous voice, and that someone was moving towards the summer-house. The girl heard the sound, and she broke away from the man who held her; she seemed literally to shriek out a name—

"Capper!"

All the rest happened in a flash. Scarcely knowing what I did, I ran round and confronted them all—and that, too, at the moment that the girl, breaking from the summer-house, ran swiftly to where the little grey-headed old man was emerging from the trees. In her agitation she flung herself at his feet, and caught at his hands, and cried out her question:

"Capper, dear, good Capper!—where's your master?"

We stood there in silence, waiting to see what would happen. For both Bardolph Just and myself could have answered the question, but what was the man Capper about to say? This was just such a crisis as I had been expecting and fearing; it seemed hours before the little grey-haired man, who had been looking down at her in a bewildered fashion, made any reply.

"I don't—don't know," he said, and he smiled round upon us rather foolishly, I thought.

"But, Capper—you remember me, Capper; I was your master's friend," went on the girl despairingly. "You remember that Mr. Pennington came to this house—oh!—oh, a week ago!"

She had risen to her feet, and was staring into his eyes. He put a hand over those eyes for a moment, and seemed to ponder something; then he 

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