th a sneer. "A hundred guineas and a damask
gown! Three hundred guineas and a gown all lace and gold tags would not
be enough. Besides, I'll wager he has not paid you a farthing. He'll
cheat you, Jenny. He's a rare bite is O'Toole. Between you and me,
Jenny, he is a beggarly fellow!"

"He has already paid me half," cried Jenny. It was no knowledge to
Wogan, who, however, counterfeited a deal of surprise.

"Well," said he, "he has only done it to cheat you the more easily of
the other fifty. We will go straight back and tell him that it costs
three hundred guineas, money down, and the best gown in Paris to turn a
fine figure of a girl into a dwarf-bear."

He leaned down and took Jenny by the arm. She sprang to her feet and
twisted herself free.

"No," she said, "you can go back if you will and show him what a good
friend you are to him. But I go on. The poor captain shall have one
person in the world, though she's only a servant, to help him when he
wants."

Thus Wogan won the victory. But he was most careful to conceal it. He
walked by her side humble as a whipped dog. If he had to point out the
way, he did it with the most penitent air; when he offered his hand to
help her over a snow-heap and she struck it aside, he merely bowed his
head as though her contempt was well deserved. He even whispered in her
ear in a trembling voice, "Jenny, you will not say a word to O'Toole
about the remarks I made of him? He is a strong, hasty man. I know not
what might come of it."

Jenny sneered and shrugged her shoulders. She would not speak to Wogan
any more, and so they came silently into the avenue of trees between
"The White Chamois" and the villa. The windows in the front of the villa
were dark, and through the blinding snow-storm Wogan could not have
distinguished the position of the house at all but for the red blinds of
the tavern opposite which shone out upon the night and gave the snow
falling before them a tinge of pink. Wogan crept nearer to the house and
heard the sentinel stamping in the snow. He came back to Jenny and
pointed the sentinel out to her.

"Give me a quarter of an hour so far as you can judge. Then pass the
sentinel and go up the steps into the house. The sentinel is prepared
for your coming, and if he stops you, you must say 'Chateaudoux' in a
whisper, and he will understand. You will find the door of the house
open and a man waiting for you."

Jenny made no answer, but Wogan was sure of her now.