The bear answered with a growl, “We’re dropped into a furnished house, and nothing to pay. The blessed world’s a beginning to find out our merits, it is!” CHAPTER XXXI. Ada’s Fate Again Against Her.—The Threat.—The New Home. Jacob Gray was not acting with his usual caution when he left such directions to the bear warden; but the attempt which had been made upon his life by Learmont and the smith had filled him with rage, and he would, in the height of his passion, willingly run some risk to be revenged upon them. “There is an ancient uninhabited house;” he muttered, “nigh to Battersea-fields, that I have several times noted. Its walls are crumbling with age. The bat screams around its tottering chimneys, I have marked it well. There am I now to take up my abode until I have wrung from Learmont a sum sufficient to induce me to leave England for ever; and when I do—ay, when I am safe in another land, then will I bring destruction upon him and Britton. They shall find that Jacob Gray has yet a sting to reach their hearts.” As he spoke, he cast an habitual glance of caution up and down the street, ere he emerged from the doorway of the house he was about to leave for ever. Some distance from him, the flutter of a white garment caught his eye, and he retreated back into the shadow of the doorway, from where he peered forth, to note who it could be that was approaching that solitary and ill-omened district. Suddenly he clutched the door-post for support, and a deadly paleness came over him. He saw Ada taking leave of Albert Seyton at the corner of the street. He saw her hands clasped in affectionate pressure. Then, with a lingering step. Albert Seyton turned away, looking, however, many times back again to smile another brief farewell to Ada. The deadly feelings of hatred that Gray entertained towards Albert Seyton now all returned in their full force, and he muttered curses, deep and appalling, against both him and Ada. “That boy again,” he growled between his clenched teeth. “How in the name of hell met she with him? In this large city what cursed fate has caused them to meet. I will have his life. Something tells me he will be a stumbling block in my way. I will take his life. Some means I will devise to safely put him in his grave. Yes—yes—smile on, young sir. You fancy now you have tracked Jacob Gray to his lair. You are mistaken. You have found a clue but to lose it again. Ha! She comes. Now, there is some deep-laid plot between them to surprise me; but I will foil it—I will foil it.” Ada now rapidly approached the doorway, in the shadow of which Gray was concealed. There was a smile of joy upon her face—the pure light of happiness danced in her eyes—and her step was agile as a young fawn.