im. I couldn't bear it, so I tell you straight!" He slapped a pile
of magazines on the counter.

"I'm rather worried," she said, "and I don't want any more
misunderstandings. I told you not long ago I shouldn't go back to
Great Titchfield Street once I was married."

"That's what I wanted to speak to you about. You're not serious, I
s'pose, in saying this. You're only doing it to test my affection."

"I mean every word."

"Very well!" announced Bulpert defiantly. "Understand, then, that the
engagement's off. Entirely and absolutely off. And if you're so
ill-advised as to bring an action for breach, you jolly well can.
Won't be a bad advert, for a public man like F. W. B. It'll get him
talked about!"

CHAPTER XI.

The final departure of Bulpert erased a troublesome detail in the
girl's life, and she felt suitably thankful; another disappearance gave
her a sensation of regret. She had thought seriously of the patient,
elderly man whom she had now to look upon as her parent, and planned a
scheme, to be prefaced by something in the nature of a brief lecture,
involving pecuniary sacrifice; her game of bricks was knocked over by
the hand of Fate, and Gertie Higham had to put them back into the box.
Mrs. Mills told her much that had hitherto been a secret shared by Mr.
Trew.

"Quite a good sort he was, my dear, until your poor young mother went,
and then--well, Mr. Trew met him when he came out of Wormwood Scrubbs,
and your father's first words were, 'Don't let the kid ever know!'
Meaning yourself. So we kept it from you, you see, and I hope you
don't blame us. No doubt, he recognized you, because you're so much
like your poor mother, only more stylish, and of course better
educated, and I suppose he felt as though he had to speak. Very likely
he won't ever let you see him again."

"Wish I knew where to find him now."

"He was like a lot of the others. Not really bad, you understand, but
just rather easily led; and because he thought everything was going
against him, he became reckless. And he belonged to the old days when
once in prison meant always in prison, and no one ever thought that a
man who had made a single blunder could be reformed. I often used to
think," declared Mrs. Mills, "that something ought to be done, but of
course I had my business to look after."

"You found time to look after me, aunt."

"If you could realize," argued the other earnestly, "what a dear baby
you was the