motor brought them. "My mother died
when I was a small boy, died in a terrible way I don't want to talk
about, and losing her broke up my father and me for a while. He never got
over it as long as he lived, and I never will as long as I live.

"The way my father died was almost as tragic as my mother's death," he
went on after a tense moment of remembering. "I was only a boy even then;
and ever since the 'knocking-about' process has been going on. I haven't
seen much of the best side of life, but I've wanted it. That was why, for
one reason, you made such an appeal to me at first sight. You were as
plucky and generous as any Bohemian, though I could see you were a
delicate, inexperienced girl, brought up under glass like the orchid you
look--and are. I'm used to making up my mind in a hurry--I've had to--so
it didn't take me many minutes to realize that if I could get you to link
up with me, I should have the thing I'd been looking for.

"Well, by the biggest stroke of luck I've got you, sooner than I could
have dared to hope; and now I don't want to make you afraid of me. I know
my faults and failings, but I don't know how to put them right and be the
sort of man a girl like you can be proud of. It's up to you to show me
the way. Whenever you see me going wrong, you're to tell me. That's what
I want--turn me into a gentleman."

When Annesley tenderly reassured him with loving flatteries, he only
laughed and caught her in his arms.

"Like a prince, am I?" he echoed. "Well, I've got princely blood in my
veins through my mother; but there are pauper princes, and in the pauper
business the gilding gets rubbed off. I trust you to gild my battered
corners. No good trying to tell me I'm gold all through, because I know
better; but when you've made me shine on the outside, I'll keep the
surface bright."

Annesley did not like the persistent way in which he spoke of himself
as a black sheep who, at best, could be whitened, and trained not to
disgrace the fold; yet it piqued her interest. Books said that women had
a weakness for men who were not good and she supposed that she was like
the rest. He was so dear and chivalrous that certain defiant hints as to
his lack of virtue vaguely added to the spice of mystery which decorated
the background of the picture--the vivid picture of the "stranger
knight."

When they had been for three days in the best suite at the Knowle Hotel,
and had made several short excursions with the m