"Oh! no, no!" said Mandy in a low voice. "He's awful mad! I'm scairt to
death! He'll do something! Oh! dear, dear! He's awful when he gets mad."

"Nonsense!" said Cameron. "He can't hurt you."

"No, but you!"

"Oh, don't worry about me. He won't hurt me."

Cameron's tone arrested the girl's attention.

"But promise me--promise me!" she cried, "that you won't touch him." She
clutched his arm in a fierce grip.

"Certainly I won't touch him," said Cameron easily, "if he behaves
himself." But in his heart he was conscious of a fierce desire that
Perkins would give him the opportunity to wipe out a part at least of
the accumulated burden of insult he had been forced to bear during the
last three weeks.

"Oh!" wailed Mandy, wringing her hands. "I know you're going to fight
him. I don't want you to! Do you hear me?" she cried, suddenly gripping
Cameron again by the arm and shaking him. "I don't want you to! Promise
me you won't!" She was in a transport of fear.

"Oh, this is nonsense, Mandy," said Cameron, laughing at her. "There
won't be any fight. I'll run away."

"All right," replied the girl quietly, releasing his arm. "Remember you
promised." She turned from him.

"Good night, Mandy. We will finish our lesson another time, eh?" he said
cheerfully.

"Good night," replied Mandy, dully, and passed through the kitchen and
into the house.

Cameron watched her go, then poured for himself a glass of milk from a
pitcher that always stood upon the table for any who might be returning
home late at night, and drank it slowly, pondering the situation the
while.

"What a confounded mess it is!" he said to himself. "I feel like cutting
the whole thing. By Jove! That girl is getting on my nerves! And that
infernal bounder! She seems to--Poor girl! I wonder if he has got any
hold on her. It would be the greatest satisfaction in the world to teach
HIM a few things too. But I have made up my mind that I am not going to
end up my time here with any row, and I'll stick to that; unless--" and,
with a tingling in his fingers, he passed out into the moonlight.

As he stepped out from the door a dark mass hurled itself at him, a hand
clutched at his throat, missed as he swiftly dodged back, and carried
away his collar. It was Perkins, his face distorted, his white teeth
showing in a snarl as of a furious beast. Again with a beast-like growl
he sprang, and again Cameron avoided him; while Perkins, missing his
clutch, stumble