he said, his fingers moving
restlessly on the table-cloth. "That check would be a very dangerous
thing if Parminter ever came to hear of it. Better give it to me."

He leaned over and took it gently from before her, and put it carefully
away in his pocket.

"Now, you see, there's more reason ever why we should get Wallie Hine
away from those two men. He is living a bad life here. Three weeks in the
country may set his thoughts in a different grove. Will you make this
sacrifice, Sylvia? Will you let me ask him? It will be a good action. You
see he doesn't know any geography."

"Very well; ask him, father."

Garrett Skinner reached over the table and patted her hand.

"Thank you, my dear! Then that's settled. I propose that you and I go
down this afternoon. Can you manage it? We might catch the four o'clock
train from Waterloo if you go home now, pack up your traps and tell the
housemaid to pack mine. I will just wind up my business and come home in
time to pick you and the luggage up."

He rose from the table, and calling a hansom, put Sylvia into it. He
watched the cab drive out into the Strand and turn the corner. Then he
went back to the table and asked for his bill. While he waited for it, he
lit a match and drawing from his pocket the crumpled check, he set fire
to it. He held it by the corner until the flame burnt his fingers. Then
he dropped it in his plate and pounded it into ashes with a fork.

"That was a bad break," he said to himself. "Left carelessly under the
edge of the hearth-rug. A very bad break."

He paid his bill, and taking his hat, sauntered out into the Strand. The
carelessness which had left the check underneath the hearth-rug was not,
however, the only bad break made in connection with this affair. At a
certain moment during luncheon Garratt Skinner had unwisely smiled and
had not quite concealed the smile with his hand. Against her every wish,
that smile forced itself upon Sylvia's recollections as she drove home.
She tried to interpret it in every pleasant sense, but it kept its true
character in her thoughts, try as she might. It remained vividly a very
hateful thing--the smile of the man who had gulled her.

CHAPTER XII

THE HOUSE OF THE RUNNING WATER

A week later, on a sunlit afternoon, Sylvia and her father drove
northward out of Weymouth between the marshes and the bay. Sylvia was
silent and looked about her with expectant eyes.

"I have been lucky, Sylvia," her fat