knew.'

'What brought you into Wales?'

'Starvation.'

'How did you get to Mr Prothero's?'

'I was a beggar and they took me in out of charity.'

'Why did you leave them and come here?'

'Because they wished it.'

'Say because Owen Prothero was in love with you.'

No answer.

'Do you love that rough sailor?'

No answer.

'I must know all, Gladys. I must and will.'

'Colonel Vaughan, I shall only answer such questions as you, as a
gentleman, may _think_ you have a right to ask a friendless girl, whom
you forcibly detain. You _know_ you have no right to ask this.'

Colonel Vaughan looked at the usually shy girl, and saw a spirit and
resolution in her bearing that he had not believed were in her.

'I beg your pardon, Gladys, I was wrong. Can you endure the state of
dependence you are now in?'

'I consider myself independent I work for my bread, and am paid for it.'

'But you might be independent without working.'

'Impossible, unless beggary is independence.'

'Quite possible; I am sure you must feel your dependence on such an
imperious mistress as you now have.'

'My present mistress, sir, Miss Gwynne, is far too noble to let any one
feel dependent, even those who are, like myself, wholly her servants.'

'You like Miss Gwynne?'

'I respect and love her. Perhaps you will now let me go to her.'

'Not yet. This independence. I could make you independent.'

'You! How? Impossible!'

'I love you, Gladys.'

'Me! This to me! Is it to insult me that you have detained me? Let me
go, sir--I insist--and my mistress! You, Colonel Vaughan, who have been
paying her such attentions as no man has a right to pay a lady unless he
loves her, to dare to say this to me, and I a servant in her house. You,
sharing her father's hospitality, to deceive her, and insult me. What
have I done to encourage you to speak thus to me?'

Gladys stood still amidst the lights and shadows of the sun-crowned
trees, and looked the colonel steadily in the face. That look, voice,
manner, completed the conquest that had been maturing for weeks and
months. The flushed cheek, the sparkling eyes, the tall, slight, erect
figure, the voice, deportment--all were those of a lady in mind as well
as person.

'Gladys, hear me calmly. I do not wish to insult you; I have never meant
anything by my attentions to Miss Gwynne.'

'Then you are a--'

Gladys checked herself.

'A villain, you would say. Not at all. I merely pay Miss Gwynne the