stop to think
that he had never sent for her; had never indeed shown a particle of
interest in her until they had met face to face.

"But since you are here," he continued, "well--I have been doing fairly
well in my business lately, and I thought we might take a little holiday
together, at some quiet village by the sea. You know nothing of England.
I have been thinking it all out this morning. There is no country more
beautiful or more typical than Dorsetshire. Besides, you were born there.
What do you say to three weeks or so in Dorsetshire? We will stay at an
hotel in Weymouth for a few days and look about for a house."

"Father!" exclaimed Sylvia, leaning forward with shining eyes. "It will
be splendid. Just you and I!"

"Well, not quite," he answered, slowly; and as he saw his daughter sink
back with a pucker of disappointment on her forehead, he knocked the ash
off his cigar and in his turn leaned forward over the table.

"Sylvia, I want to talk to you seriously," he said, and glanced around to
make sure that no one overheard him. "I should very much like one person
to come and stay with us."

Sylvia made no answer. Her face was grave and very still, her eyes dwelt
quietly upon him and betrayed nothing of what she thought.

"You have guessed who the one person is?"

Again Sylvia did not answer.

"Yes. It is Wallie Hine," he continued.

Her suspicions were stirring again from their sleep. She waited in fear
upon his words. She looked out, through the opening at the mouth of the
court into the glare of the Strand. The bright prospect which her vivid
fancies had pictured there a minute since, transforming the dusky street
into fields of corn and purple heather, the omnibuses into wagons drawn
by teams of great horses musical with bells, had all grown dark. A real
horror was gripping her. But she turned her eyes quietly back upon her
father's face and waited.

"His presence will spoil our holiday a little," Garratt Skinner continued
with an easy assurance. "You saw, no doubt, what Wallie Hine is, last
night--a weak, foolish youth, barely half-educated, awkward, with graces
of neither mind nor body, and in the hands of two scoundrels."

Sylvia started, and she leaned forward with a look of bewilderment plain
to see in her dark eyes.

"Yes, that's the truth, Sylvia. He has come into a little money, and he
is in the hands of two scoundrels who are leading him by the nose. My
poor girl," he cried, suddenly b