some such statement constituted the
real object of their talk, but now that it was made, it was none the
less a blow. He felt himself growing a shade paler under the weather
worn bronze of his face.

"What does Lalante herself say about it," was his rejoinder.

"Say? Say?" echoed Le Sage, angrily. "She has no say in the matter. I
simply forbid it."

"You can't do that, Le Sage. She is of full age, you know," said Wyvern
quietly, but with a ring of sadness in his tone. "Look here--no, wait--
hear me out," seeing that the other was about to interrupt with a
furious rejoinder. "I've set myself out all through this interview
never for a moment to lose sight of the fact that you are her father,
consequently have sat quiet under a tone I would stand from no other man
alive. But even the authority of a father has its limits, and you have
started in to exercise yours a trifle too late."

"Then you refuse to give her up?" furiously.

"Most distinctly. Unless, that is, she herself wished it."

"Oh, you would then?" said Le Sage, quickly, clutching at a straw.

"Certainly. But I must hear it from her own lips, face to face. Not
through a third party, or on paper." Le Sage's "straw" seemed to sink.

"I don't want to irritate you further, Le Sage," went on Wyvern after a
moment's pause. "But I'm convinced as firmly as that you and I are
sitting here that I shall never hear anything of the sort. It is not in
Lalante to turn from me in misfortune. Our love is too complete."

"And I don't count. I, her father, am to stand aside as of no account
at all?"

The unconscious pathos that welled up in the very bitterness of his
tone, reflected what had lain beneath his mind since some time back--
that his child should be so ready and eager to leave him. And Wyvern's
instinct was quick to grasp it.

"I quite see your import and sympathise," he said. "Yes, I sympathise,
thoroughly. But Nature is nothing if not pitiless, and this is a
provision of Nature. And look here, Le Sage, my existing run of
ill-luck ought to be a recommendation from your point of view in that
you will be able to keep the child longer with you, for of course I
don't dream of claiming her until my luck changes."

"That'll be never then," rejoined the other, savagely. "Man, haven't
you more sense of honour than to pin a girl to her contract when you
know you haven't enough to keep yourself, let alone her? She is very
young too. I don't k