e alone. Death took my father
from me; your friend has robbed me of my mother. My old playfellow,
Roderick Vawdrey, belongs to his cousin. I belong to nobody."

"Let me have you then, Violet. Ah, if you knew how I would cherish you!
You should be loved so well that you would fancy yourself the centre of
the universe, and that all the planets revolved in the skies only to
please you. Love, let me have you--priceless treasure that others know
not how to value. Let me keep and guard you."

"I would not wrong you so much as to marry you without loving you, and
I shall never love any more," said Vixen, with a sad steadfastness that
was more dispiriting than the most vehement protestation.

"Why not?"

"Because I spent all my store of love while I was a child. I loved my
father--ah, I cannot tell you how fondly. I do not think there are many
fathers who are loved as he was. I poured out all my treasures of
affection at his feet. I have no love left for a husband."

"What, Violet, not if your old friend Roderick Vawdrey were pleading?"
asked Lord Mallow.

It was an unlucky speech. If Lord Mallow had had a chance which he had
not, that speech would have spoiled it. Violet started to her feet, her
cheeks crimson, her eyes flashing.

"It is shameful, abominable of you to say such a thing!" she cried, her
voice tremulous with indignation. "I will never forgive you for that
dastardly speech. Come, Argus."

She had mounted the broad oak stairs with light swift foot before Lord
Mallow could apologise. He was terribly crestfallen.

"I was a brute," he muttered to himself. "But I hit the bull's-eye. It
is that fellow she loves. Hard upon me, when I ask for nothing but to
be her slave and adore her all the days of my life. And I know that
Winstanley would have been pleased. How lovely she looked when she was
angry--her tawny hair gleaming in the firelight, her great brown eyes
flashing. Yes, it's the Hampshire squire she cares for, and I'm out of
it. I'll go and shoot the pheasants," concluded Lord Mallow savagely;
"those beggars shall not have it all their own way to-day."

He went off to get his gun, in the worst humour he had ever been in
since he was a child and cried for the moon.

He spent the whole day in a young oak plantation, ankle-deep in oozy
mud, moss, and dead fern, making havoc among the innocent birds. He was
in so bloodthirsty a temper, that he felt as if he could have shot a
covey of young children, had th