'Look here,' he said, and for once his dull round eyes met mine with the straightforwardness of an honest conviction. 'Full-grown women are the devil. Either they're good or they're bad. If they're bad--well, we need say no more about them; if they're good, why--the less said about their goodness the better. But a young girl, before she's learnt a woman's tricks--and especially if she's your own flesh and blood--why that's different! And my little girl, for all she shows none too much affection for her father (but that's her mother's doing), she's a little picture, and I'm proud of her. And if any infernal cad of a d----d gentleman was to be up to any nonsense with her, and so much as to put his--hand on her pretty little head--look here, Mr. What-d'ye-call-'em, I'd make a d----d pulp of him!' And Mr. Ellmer gripped my coat with a fierceness and looked into my face with a resolution which, in spite of the coarseness which had disfigured his speech, warmed my heart towards him. For, instead of the contemptible sodden cur of a few minutes ago, it was a man,--degraded by his course of life, but still a man, with a spark of the right fire in his heart,--who stood blinking steadily at me with a persistency which demanded an answer. I freed my coat from his grasp, but without any show of annoyance, and answered him simply at once. 'You won't have to make pulp of anybody while your daughter lives at Ballater, Mr. Ellmer. I have watched her grow from a child into--into what she is now, something--to us who love her--between a fairy and an angel; and no father could take deeper interest in his own child than I do in her.' 'Deeper interest,' repeated Mr. Ellmer dubiously; 'No; I daresay not. But, excuse me, Mr.--Mr.----' 'Maude.' 'Yes, Mr. Maude, no offence to you, but you're a man yourself, you know.' After the contumely with which he had treated me, the admission seemed quite a compliment. I made no attempt to deny it, and this reticence emboldened him. 'Now, why don't you marry her yourself?' To have the wish which has been secretly gnawing at the foundations of your heart suddenly brought face to face with you is a startling and confounding experience. I think no convicted ruffian can ever have looked more guiltily ashamed of himself than I, as I felt the hot blood mount to my head, and my brain swim with the first full consciousness of a futile passion. Of course, the man before me put the worst construction upon my evident confusion; he repeated in a louder and more blustering tone-- 'Why don't you marry her?' 'In the first place,' said I quietly, 'she is scarcely more than a child, Mr. Ellmer.' 'That's not much of a fault, for she won't improve as she loses it. Besides, you needn't marry her at once.' 'In the second place, I am quite sure she wouldn't have me.' 'Why not? She seems to like you.'