u going to alter Jean's share too, so that this precious
Vernon fellow may have something to squander?"

"Something respectable to live on," corrected his parent. "You mustn't
starve art, you know."

Andrew stared at him in silence, and when he spoke, it was with the air
of a much-wronged worm which has deliberately resolved to turn at last.

"I'm not wanting any of your Ellen Berstouns. If she's played this trick
on me, that's enough of her. But I tell you plainly I'm not going to let
you rob me to keep a pack of worthless painters and people out of the
gutter, without taking some steps. I warn you of that."

"My dear Andrew," said his father reproachfully, "that's hardly the
attitude of a professing Christian. Just think, now; is it? You'll
easily find a decent, quiet woman with a bit of money and no objection
to hearing every day for an hour or two how you've been worried by your
clients and swindled by your father, and I do honestly believe you'll
get as near happiness as you're capable of. That's common sense, now;
isn't it?"

The slamming of the door answered him.

"What a sulky fellow he is!" said Heriot to himself.

Yet so conscious was he of the rectitude of his intentions, and so
confiding had his disposition grown, that it never crossed his mind to
beware of an infuriated lawyer. Besides, when Andrew had slept over it,
he would surely realize how unanswerable were his father's arguments.

"We'll see the old stick-in-the-mud dancing at Frank's wedding!"
thought he. "There's no vice in Andrew; only a bit of obstinacy.
It's all bark and no bite with him."

With these amiable reflections he speedily consoled himself for the
discomfort of any little temporary friction. And then the door opened
gently.

CHAPTER IV

"I heard you had come back again," said Mrs. Dunbar.

She closed the door as gently as she had opened it. The action
pathetically expressed the quiet sorrow of a much-wronged woman's
heart.

"Yes," said Heriot gallantly, "I'm back again to Scotland, home and
beauty. Ha, ha! Now that was quite pretty, wasn't it?"

But her black eyes declined to sparkle, as she glided silently to a
chair. Out of the corner of his own eye her lover looked at her
critically.

"I'm delighted to see you again, Madge," he went on; but his words had a
hollow ring, and his eye continued to express more doubt than passion.

"Have you no apology to offer me?" she inquired, with the same ominous
calm.