t. There was an understanding between them, and
this was an assignation. The girl walked swiftly up and down the room
like a caged tigress, striking her head with her clenched hands in her
anger and biting her lip until the blood came. It was some time before
she could overcome her agitation sufficiently to deliver the note, and
when she did so her mistress, as we have seen, noticed that her manner
was nervous and wild. She little dreamed of the struggle which was
going on in the dark-eyed girl's mind against the impulse which urged
her to seize her imagined rival by the white throat and choke the life
out of her.

"It's eight o'clock now," Ezra was saying downstairs. "I wonder whether
she will come?"

"She is sure to come," his father said briefly.

"Suppose she didn't?"

"In that case we should find other means to bring her out. We have not
gone so far, to break down over a trifle at the last moment."

"I must have something to drink," Ezra said, after a pause, helping
himself from the bottle. "I feel as cold as ice and as nervous as a
cat. I can't understand how you look so unconcerned. If you were going
to sign an invoice or audit an account or anything else in the way of
business you could not take it more calmly. I wish the time would come.
This waiting is terrible."

"Let us pass the time to advantage," said John Girdlestone; and drawing
a little fat Bible from his pocket he began to read it aloud in a solemn
and sonorous voice. The yellow light illuminated the old merchant's
massive features as he stooped forwards towards the candle.
His strongly marked nose and his hollow cheeks gave him a vulture-like
aspect, which was increased by the effect of his deep-set glittering
eyes.

Ezra, leaning back in his chair with the firelight flickering over his
haggard but still handsome face, looked across at his father with a
puzzled expression. He had never yet been able to determine whether the
old man was a consummate hypocrite or a religious monomaniac. Burt lay
with his feet in the light of the fire and his head sunk back across the
arm of the chair, fast asleep and snoring loudly.

"Isn't it time to wake him up?" Ezra asked, interrupting the reading.

"Yes, I think it is," his father answered, closing the sacred volume
reverently and replacing it in his bosom.

Ezra took up the candle and held it over the sleeping man. "What a
brute he looks!" he said. "Did ever you see such an animal in you