as a favour to your sweet self."

The girl trembled.

"Who is master here?" she demanded, turning a full eye on her father.

Mullet laughed uneasily.

"This is business," he said, trying to speak lightly, "and women can't
understand it. Gunn is--is valuable to me, and George must go."

"Unless you plead for him, sweet one?" said Gunn.

The girl looked at her father again, but he turned his head away and
tapped on the floor with his foot. Then in perplexity, akin to tears,
she walked from the room, carefully drawing her dress aside as Gunn held
the door for her.

"A fine girl," said Gunn, his thin lips working; "a fine spirit. 'Twill
be pleasant to break it; but she does not know who is master here."

"She is young yet," said the other, hurriedly.

"I will soon age her if she looks like that at me again," said Gunn. "By
---, I'll turn out the whole crew into the street, and her with them, an'
I wish it. I'll lie in my bed warm o' nights and think of her huddled on
a doorstep."

His voice rose and his fists clenched, but he kept his distance and
watched the other warily. The innkeeper's face was contorted and his
brow grew wet. For one moment something peeped out of his eyes; the next
he sat down in his chair again and nervously fingered his chin.

"I have but to speak," said Gunn, regarding him with much satisfaction,
"and you will hang, and your money go to the Crown. What will become of
her then, think you?"

The other laughed nervously.

"'Twould be stopping the golden eggs," he ventured.

"Don't think too much of that," said Gunn, in a hard voice. "I was never
one to be baulked, as you know."

"Come, come. Let us be friends," said Mullet; "the girl is young, and
has had her way."

He looked almost pleadingly at the other, and his voice trembled. Gunn
drew himself up, and regarding him with a satisfied sneer, quitted the
room without a word.

Affairs at the "Golden Key" grew steadily worse and worse. Gunn
dominated the place, and his vile personality hung over it like a shadow.
Appeals to the innkeeper were in vain; his health was breaking fast, and
he moodily declined to interfere. Gunn appointed servants of his own
choosing-brazen maids and foul-mouthed men. The old patrons ceased to
frequent the "Golden Key," and its bedrooms stood empty. The maids
scarcely deigned to take an order from Joan, and the men spoke to her
familiarly. In the midst of all this the innkeeper, who had