Neither the salutation nor the manner of the man pleased Austin; his appearance, there and then, especially displeased him. His answer was spoken in haughty defiance. Not in policy: and in a cooler moment he would have remembered the latter to have been the only safe diplomacy. A strangely bitter smile of conscious power parted the man's lips. 'So you take part with him, do you, sir! It may be better for both you and him, that you bring me face to face with him. They have denied me to him at his house; their master is out of town, they say; but I know it to be a lie: I know that the message was sent out to me by Hunter himself. I had a great mind to force----' Florence, who was looking deadly white, interrupted, her voice haughty as Austin's had been. 'You labour under a mistake, sir. My father is out of town. He went this morning.' Mr. Gwinn wheeled round to her. Neither her tone nor Austin's was calculated to abate his anger. 'You are his daughter, then!' he uttered, with the same insolent stare, the same displayed irony he had once used to her mother. 'The young lady whom people envy as that spoiled and only child, Miss Hunter! What if I tell you a secret?--that you----' 'Be still!' shouted Austin, in uncontrollable emotion. 'Are you a man, or a demon? Miss Hunter, allow me,' he cried, grasping the hand of Florence, and drawing her peremptorily towards Peter Quale's door, which he threw open. 'Go upstairs, Florence, to my sitting-room: wait there until I come to you. I must be alone with this man.' Florence looked at him in amazement, as he pushed her into the passage. He was evidently in the deepest agitation: every vestige of colour had forsaken his face, and his manner was authoritative as any father's could have been. She bowed to its power unconsciously, not a thought of resistance crossing her mind, and went straight upstairs to his sitting room--although it might not be precisely correct for a young lady so to do. Not a soul, save herself, appeared to be in the house. A short colloquy and an angry one, and then Mr. Gwinn was seen returning the way he had come. Austin came springing up the stairs three at a time. 'Will you forgive me, Florence? I could not do otherwise.' What with the suddenness of the proceedings, their strangeness, and her own doubts and emotion, Florence burst into tears. Austin lost his head: at least, all of prudence that was in it. In the agitation of the moment he suffered his long-controlled feelings to get the better of him, and spoke words that he had hitherto successfully repressed. 'My darling!' he whispered, taking her hand, 'I wish I could have shielded you from it! Florence, you know--you must long have known--that my dearest object in life is you--your happiness, your welfare. I had not intended to say this so soon; it has been forced from me: you must pardon me for saying it here and now.'