our work is done."

This she said with a tremor in her voice, as though she had been an
injured woman.

"You know it is a lie!" I cried vehemently. "You know it to be a base
lie!"

And this was all I could say, for the wily woman seemed to take all
words from my mouth, save those of a blank denial to her wicked lies.
Besides my heart sunk like lead as I saw how her words weighed with
Naomi's father, and as though he saw everything in a new light.

"Let me see my child," he said at length, and after both Richard
Tresidder and his mother had made themselves out to be the guardian
angels of Naomi's life, while I had been plotting her destruction.

"You shall see her when he is gone," she said, pointing to me. "I can
never consent for her to come here while that wretch is in the room."
Whereupon John Penryn asked many questions, which they answered so
cunningly that I was tongue-tied, and could say nothing except foolish,
wild ejaculations.

"Go, Jasper Pennington," he said at length, "leave me here."

"No," I said; "I came to find Naomi, my love. I will see her before I
go. She has promised to be my wife."

"His wife!" cried Richard Tresidder's mother. "Think of it. He possesses
not one stick. He is a wild vagabond, a terror wherever he goes. How can
Naomi Penryn become his wife?"

"Pennington should be mine!" I cried, like one demented. "You robbed it
from my father."

"You know the history of Pennington, John," cried the old woman; "it is
held in trust for my son. It should have been given to him outright, but
my poor husband was mad at the time, and he made a madman's will. But
can this fellow buy it back? Has he wealth sufficient to pay half the
worth of the estate?"

"Go, Jasper Pennington," said Naomi's father again; "I will do what is
right. This woman says you are an evildoer. Well, it shall be my work to
guard my child against evildoers."

Then all the heart went out of me, and I, who had hoped so much, left
the house of my fathers without so much as seeing Naomi or knowing
whether I should ever behold her again. Ay, I left it a beaten man,
without a hope, without one bright spot in the sky of my life.

I saw that Naomi's father had been dragged into the Tresidders' net, and
that he would be the creature of their wills, the tool to help them to
fulfil their purposes.

Except for this my mind was a perfect blank. Slow as I always was to
think, I saw no way out of my difficulties. That which I had