hundred
times."

"Ah, then you have at last experienced remorse!" she cried bitterly,
looking straight into the man's face. "You have estranged me from my
father, and tried to ruin him! You lied to him--lied in order to save
yourself!"

The man laughed. "My dear child," he exclaimed, "you really misjudge me
entirely. I am here for two reasons: to ask your forgiveness for making
that allegation which was imperative; and, secondly, to assure you that,
if you will allow me, I will yet be your friend."

"Friend!" she echoed in a hollow voice. "You--my friend!"

"Yes. I know that you mistrust me," he replied; "but I want to prove
that my intentions towards you are those of real friendship."

"And you, who ever since my girlhood days have been my worst enemy, ask
me now to trust you!" she exclaimed with indignation. "No; go back to
Lady Heyburn and tell her that I refuse to accept the olive-branch which
you and she hold out to me."

"My dear girl, you don't follow me," he exclaimed impatiently. "This has
nothing whatever to do with Lady Heyburn. I have come to you from purely
personal motives. My sole desire is to effect your return to
Glencardine."

"For your own ends, Mr. Flockart, without a doubt!" she said bitterly.

"Ah! there you are quite mistaken. Though you assert that I am your
father's enemy, I am, I tell you, his friend. He is ever thinking of you
with regret. You were his right hand. Would it not be far better if he
invited you to return?"

She sighed at the thought of the blind man whom she regarded with such
entire devotion, but answered, "No, I shall never return to
Glencardine."

"Why?" he asked. "Was it anything more than natural that, believing you
had been prying into his affairs, your father, in a moment of anger,
condemned you to this life of appalling monotony?"

"No, not more natural than that you, the culprit, should have made me
the scapegoat for the second time," was her defiant reply.

"Have I not already told you that the reason I'm here is to crave your
forgiveness? I admit that my actions have been the reverse of
honourable; but--well, there were circumstances which compelled me to
act as I did."

"You got an impression of my father's safe-key, had a duplicate made in
Glasgow, as I have found out, and one night opened the safe and copied
certain private documents having regard to a proposed loan to the Greek
Government. The night I discovered you was the second occasion when you