"She is not at Redwoods. I have received private and reliable information that she is to marry Richard Clough this afternoon, and I have reason to think that she is in this house." "What? Nina going to marry that horrid little man? I don't believe it!" Miss Shropshire was a woman of thorough and uncompromising methods. "Is Nina in this house or not?" "Mr. Randolph! Of course she is not. I would have nothing to do with such an affair." Mr. Randolph swallowed a curse, and strode up and down the room several times. Then he paused and confronted her once more. "Molly," he said, "I appeal to you as a woman. If you have any friendship for Nina, give her up to me and save her from ruin, or tell me where she is. It is not yet too late. I will risk everything and take her abroad. She is ruining her own life and Thorpe's and mine by a mistaken sense of duty to him, and contempt for herself: I know her so well that I feel sure that is the reason for this act she contemplates to-day. I will take her to Thorpe. He could reclaim her. Clough--you can perhaps imagine how Clough will treat her! Picture the life she must lead with that man, and give her up to me. And, if you have any heart, keep my own from breaking. She is all that I have. You know what my home is; I have lived in hell for twenty-four years for this girl's sake. I have kept a monster in my house that Nina should have no family scandal to reproach me with. And all to what purpose if she marries a cad and a brute? I would have endured the torments of the past twenty-five years, multiplied tenfold, to have secured her happiness. If she marries Richard Clough, it will kill me." "She is not here," replied Miss Shropshire. Mr. Randolph trembled from head to foot. "My God!" he cried, "have you women no heart? Are all women, I wonder, like those I have known? My wife, a demon who nursed her baby on brandy! My daughter, repaying the devotion of years with blackest ingratitude! And you--" He fell, rather than dropped to his knees, and caught her dress in his hands. "Molly," he prayed, "give her to me. Save her from becoming one of the outcast of the earth. For that is what this marriage will mean to her." Miss Shropshire set her teeth. "Nina is not here," she said. Mr. Randolph stumbled to his feet, and rushed from the house. He walked rapidly down the hill toward Old Trinity in Pine Street, the church Nina attended, his dislocated mind endeavouring to suggest that he wait for her there. His agitation was so marked that several people turned and looked after him in surprise. He reached the church. A carriage approached, passed. Its occupants were Richard Clough, a well-known gambler named Bell, and a man who carried the unmistakable cut of a parson. Mr. Randolph rushed to the middle of the street, ordering the driver to stop. The window of the carriage was open. He caught Clough by the shoulder. "Are you on your way to marry my daughter?" he demanded.