ward, in the ordinary sense of the word: there was in him
a good deal of what goes to the making of a gentleman; but he confessed
to being "in a bit of a funk" when he heard who was below: there was
but one thing it could mean, he thought--that Letty had been found out,
and here was her cousin come to make a row. But what did it matter, so
long as Letty was true to him? The world should know that Wardour nor
Platt--his mother's maiden name!--nor any power on earth should keep
from him the woman of his choice! As soon as he was of age, he would
marry her, in spite of them all. But he could not help being a little
afraid of Godfrey Wardour, for he admired him.

For Godfrey, he would have rather liked Tom Helmer, had he ever seen
down into the best of him; but Tom's carelessness had so often
misrepresented him, that Godfrey had too huge a contempt for him. And
now the miserable creature had not merely grown dangerous, but had of a
sudden done him the greatest possible hurt! It was all Godfrey could do
to keep his contempt and hate within what he would have called the
bounds of reason, as he waited for "the miserable mongrel." He kept
walking up and down the little lawn, which a high shrubbery protected
from the road, making a futile attempt, as often as he thought of the
policy of it, to look unconcerned, and the next moment striking fierce,
objectless blows with his whip. Catching sight of him from a window on
the stair, Tom was so little reassured by his demeanor, that, crossing
the hall, he chose from the stand a thick oak stick--poor odds against
a hunting-whip in the hands of one like Godfrey, with the steel of ten
years of manhood in him.

Tom's long legs came doubling carelessly down the two steps from the
door, as, with a gracious wave of the hand, and swinging his cudgel as
if he were just going out for a stroll, he coolly greeted his visitor.
But the other, instead of returning the salutation, stepped quickly up
to him.

"Mr. Helmer, where is Miss Lovel?" he said, in a low voice.

Tom turned pale, for a pang of undefined fear shot through him, and his
voice betrayed genuine anxiety as he answered:

"I do not know. What has happened?"

Wardour's fingers gripped convulsively his whip-handle, and the word
_liar_ had almost escaped his lips; but, through the darkness of the
tempest raging in him, he yes read truth in Tom's scared face and
trembling words.

"You were with her last night," he said, grinding it