" He laughed shrilly. "And other people shall know,
too! Your mother will be pleased, and--the clean peasant! I only wonder
you haven't _married_ that poor wretch. The situation would then be even
more--biblical."

She tried to pass him, but he barred her way. "If you don't let me go, I
will call for M. Joyselle. And if he doesn't hear me, someone else will.
Do you understand?"

He did not answer, and looking at him carefully for a moment she was for
the first time terrified. His eyes were not those of a sane man.

"Gerald, don't be nasty," she urged, gently. "Surely you must see that
there is no harm in my coming to see Joyselle! In a month or two he will
be my father-in-law."

He sneered. "Ah, bah! I saw your face as you passed the last window. It
was not the face of a girl coming from her future father-in-law. It was
the face----"

Before he could finish a door opened on the floor above and two children
came downstairs, chattering gaily to each other. Brigit turned to the
elder, a boy of six, dressed in a quaintly cut green blouse.

"Is your papa at home, my dear?" she asked.

The child laughed. "My papa is dead," he answered cheerfully, "but Uncle
Chris is there."

Brigit looked at Carron for a moment, and then went downstairs with her
hand on the little boy's shoulder. "And what is your name?" she asked.

"I'm Bob Seymour, and this is Patty. Uncle Chris has been painting us.
He gives us a shilling apiece each time."

"How very nice." Patty, who wore as obviously artistic a costume as her
brother's, thumped noisily from behind them, and a few seconds later
Brigit had kissed her unconscious but all-powerful bodyguard and jumped
into the hansom.

If a man had come instead of the children, almost anything might have
happened, for she had no doubt that Carron's sanity was approaching
snapping-point, but the innocent courage of Bob and Patty had quieted
him.

Brigit had a very unpleasant drive home, but the romantic cabby was
delightfully thrilled. As it happened, he had been "crawling" for some
minutes before Brigit had engaged him in Sloane Square, and had noticed
her being accosted by Carron.

"Something queer along of all this," he meditated; "that lean chap
didn't look quite right, an' she 'adn't no patience with 'im neither.
Then in she goes to the old 'ouse, an' then along comes another 'ansom
with the lean chap. Then I waits an hour, an' out she comes with the
little kids, kissin' 'em, an' the bi