Sam's indignation at the vile, unkind thrust made on the character of a bereaved woman, spoke eloquently in his blazing eyes, nevertheless out of regard for his aunt's wishes he closed his teeth tightly in silence, but on seeing the pseudo lord's insistent familiarity with Virginia, and noting her strange hesitant submission as he rather more than familiarly escorted her to the divan, Sam's rage burst through his discretion and his manly, straight-forwardness asserted itself, in utter disregard of his aunt's warnings. Rutley had evidently thrown out the base insinuation as a feeler, but the manner in which Sam met it--met it squarely in the "Wild West way," quickly disabused his mind of any idea he may have had that Constance was friendless. "Sir!" Sam said; "I know but one little word that fitly characterizes your insinuation concerning Mrs. Thorpe," and unwilling to resist the natural gravity of his feet toward Rutley, sidled up close to him, and, with a quiver of contempt in his voice, finished: "And down in Texas they taught me to brand it 'a damned lie'!" Sam was rewarded in a manner he little anticipated, and by the woman who had heretofore despised him, for with eyes that sparkled with admiration and lips that parted in a smile of glad surprise, she involuntarily murmured: "Splendid, Sam!" His silly, boyish side had vanished, and in its place his true, strong, sterling character stood revealed. In that one moment he knew that he had won from her a tribute of esteem, but he did not at that time realize that it was a long step toward the consummation of his devout desire--to win her heart. If an electric bolt had at that moment descended from the clear, ethereal blue, and wrecked the house, Mrs. Harris' consternation could not have been greater. "Oh!" she faintly gasped. "Dear me! Oh, Sam, how could you!" and then she staggered almost to collapse in his arms. For a moment Rutley was astounded, then drawing himself up in a pose of statuesque haughtiness, again most studiously adjusted his monocle to his eye and directed at alert Sam a stony stare of ineffable disdain. Then he languidly drawled, without a muscle of his white, bloodless face moving: "Aw, it's deuced draughty, don't-che know!" A few minutes later Mr. Harris beckoned Virginia into the library. After delivering her the check he had promised, they together went out in search for John Thorpe, but he had disappeared. Had they looked more closely and further up the hillside, they might have seen a haggard man sitting in the shadow of a fir, apparently weary of the world, and pondering on the vicissitudes of life. CHAPTER XII. In the meantime Virginia had been doing her utmost, in a quiet way, to obtain the necessary amount of Dorothy's ransom.