“Katie, time was when you urged me to do this, for your sake I refused. Now, dear, my time has come. I am going to thrash him to within an inch of his life.” “No, Frank, no. Let him go. He has been punished enough.” Kate and Alice had gone again into the drawing-room when they had heard Fred Bingham go down-stairs. They had just began to speak when the servant entered,— “Please, ma’am, you are to go down-stairs to Mr. Frank; he has got Mr. Bingham, and I do think he will kill him.” For the man had been frightened at Frank’s expression when he took the whip from him. All the party rose and made a movement. “Oh, Katie!” Alice burst out. “Stop!” Kate said, very pale, “stop, all of you, I will go down alone. I know Frank. None of you could turn him, not a hair’s breadth, now. I do not know whether I can. I will try.” “No, wife,” Frank answered her appeal, “he has been punished for cheating his uncle, he has been punished for Carry, but he has not been punished for you, I—I, your husband, Kate—take that in my own hands.” Frank had not looked at his wife while he spoke; his eyes, wide with a savage glare, looked down upon his victim, and his powerful arm was slowly but steadily raised. Kate clung to him. “Frank, oh, Frank, I forgive him!” “Yes, Katie, you forgive him for yourself, but I don’t forgive him for my wife. Stand aside, Katie!” There was something so menacing, so deadly, in the cold calmness of his tone, that Kate shuddered, while Fred Bingham, although he had despairingly nerved himself for the ordeal, yet felt the blood tingling in every vein. “Oh, Frank, if you love me, if you care for me, let him go.” “Katie, for the last time, stand aside.” Kate threw her arms closer round him. “Frank! husband! look at me! Have I been a good wife to you? Have I ever once murmured? Have I tried hard to make your life happy? Frank, since we have been married I never asked you any great favour. I ask it now, Frank, for this wretched man—not for his sake, but for mine—for the sake of your little wife, who so loves you. Oh, Frank, Frank,” and Kate’s eyes closed, and had not Frank’s right arm closed round her, she would have fallen. Frank’s face had softened as she spoke, and as the little figure drooped more heavily upon him, his fingers unclosed from their vice-like hold of Fred Bingham. Then, without a word, without any apparent knowledge of the man he had released, he raised his wife and carried her into the house. Two days after this, Captain Bradshaw was sitting alone with his grandson, when, after a pause, the invalid said— “I want you to give me some money, grandfather—something I can do as I like with.” “God bless my soul, my boy,” Captain Bradshaw said, hastily, “why did you not ask before? How much do you want?”