emperament--a kiss-snatching, door-
bursting type of libertine. In the very act of straying from the path of
virtue he remained a respectable merchant. It would have been perhaps
better for Flora if he had been a mere brute. But he set about his
sinister enterprise in a sentimental, cautious, almost paternal manner;
and thought he would be safe with a pretty orphan. The girl for all her
experience was still too innocent, and indeed not yet sufficiently aware
of herself as a woman, to mistrust these masked approaches. She did not
see them, in fact. She thought him sympathetic--the first expressively
sympathetic person she had ever met. She was so innocent that she could
not understand the fury of the German woman. For, as you may imagine,
the wifely penetration was not to be deceived for any great length of
time--the more so that the wife was older than the husband. The man with
the peculiar cowardice of respectability never said a word in Flora's
defence. He stood by and heard her reviled in the most abusive terms,
only nodding and frowning vaguely from time to time. It will give you
the idea of the girl's innocence when I say that at first she actually
thought this storm of indignant reproaches was caused by the discovery of
her real name and her relation to a convict. She had been sent out under
an assumed name--a highly recommended orphan of honourable parentage. Her
distress, her burning cheeks, her endeavours to express her regret for
this deception were taken for a confession of guilt. "You attempted to
bring dishonour to my home," the German woman screamed at her.

Here's a misunderstanding for you! Flora de Barral, who felt the shame
but did not believe in the guilt of her father, retorted fiercely,
"Nevertheless I am as honourable as you are." And then the German woman
nearly went into a fit from rage. "I shall have you thrown out into the
street."

Flora was not exactly thrown out into the street, I believe, but she was
bundled bag and baggage on board a steamer for London. Did I tell you
these people lived in Hamburg? Well yes--sent to the docks late on a
rainy winter evening in charge of some sneering lackey or other who
behaved to her insolently and left her on deck burning with indignation,
her hair half down, shaking with excitement and, truth to say, scared as
near as possible into hysterics. If it had not been for the stewardess
who, without asking questions, good soul, took charge o