hated. He didn't tell me that part, naturally, but there was
no need, because I guessed----"

"What--what have you done to him?" The words came limping, because of
the look in his eyes, which shot forth a sword.

"Oh, unluckily it's under my own roof, so I could do no more than bid
him clear out if he didn't want to be kicked out!"

"Gone!" I whispered.

"Yes, gone. And as Mrs. Senter's very loyal to her nephew, she prefers
to leave with him, though she has had nothing to do with his
plottings--didn't even know, and I asked her to stay. She insists on
going to-night when he does. I'm sorry. But it can't be helped. I cannot
think of her now."

"Ellaline----" I began faintly; but he cut me short, with a kind of
generous impatience. "Yes, yes, you shall see her. She wants to see you,
now that she understands, but----"

"Understands?"

"Why, you see, that little beast, Dick Burden--whose mother's staying
near where Ellaline was in Scotland--went there straight from
Bamborough, and put the girl up to believe you'd been playing her
false--prejudicing me against her interests, trying to keep for yourself
things that ought to be hers; so apparently she worked herself into a
hysterical state--must have, or she wouldn't have believed him against
you; and the instant she was married to her Frenchman, who'd come to
claim her, all three dashed off here to 'confront' you, as that cad
Burden explained to me. I couldn't understand what they were all driving
at just at first, but I saw that the girl was the living image of her
mother, consequently the thing didn't need as much explaining in any way
as it might otherwise."

"She was horribly afraid you wouldn't let her marry him," I broke in,
getting breath and voice back at last.

"So she said. Oh, when she knew Burden had lied to her about you, she
repented her disloyalty, and told me how you hated the whole thing. I
don't wonder she thought me a brute, never writing, never seeming to
care whether she was alive or dead; I see now I was a brute; but it's
you who've shown me that, not she. However, she will reap the benefit. I
daresay three months ago I should have growled over such a marriage,
felt inclined to wash my hands of the girl, perhaps, but now--now I'm
delighted to have her married and--_off_ my hands. That sounds callous,
but I can't help it. It's true. The Frenchman seems a gentleman, and
fond of her--trust Ellaline de Nesville's daughter to make men fall in
love