She turned round with a comical expression of mingled pain and amusement in her face. "Do you think it requires so much effrontery?" she demanded. "Recollect my position, or rather total want of it. Recollect that Mr. Groves is rich, amiable, kind-hearted, and, after all, not so _very_ old, that is, for a _man_. Just the sort of person to make a good, trustworthy, affectionate husband." "Then why didn't you take him?" said Frank; but the tone of pique in which he spoke, told Miss Ross the game was in her own hand. She let go his arm, looking reproachfully into his very eyes. "Can _you_ ask me, Captain Vanguard?" she exclaimed, in sorrowful accents, stopping short under a pair of elaborate blue knickerbockers, ticketed seven-and-nine. "If so, I have indeed acted madly in meeting you here to-day. No; let go my hand. Before I walk a step farther tell me if you really mean what you say!" "You know what I mean," he answered, in an agitated whisper. "You know that you are everything in the world to _me_. That if you took up with any other fellow you would drive me mad, and that I would rather we were both in our graves than you should marry such a 'guy' as old Groves!" They were pacing on through the bazaar once more, Frank having repossessed himself of his companion's arm, while he made the foregoing statement, with every appearance of earnestness and truth. Jin stopped short at a counter, on which were displayed a variety of children's toys in gaudy profusion. "What a love!" she exclaimed, pouncing on a parti-coloured little figure-of-fun with bells at all its angles. "Twelve-and-sixpence? Put it up for me, please, Captain Vanguard; don't look so astonished. It's only a plaything for my boy!" Frank's eyes opened wide; perhaps for that reason his ears failed to detect something forced and embarrassed in the laugh with which Miss Ross greeted his surprise. "I have no secrets from you _now_," she continued. "You and I must trust each other entirely, or not at all. I have never told you about my boy, but I cannot and will not give him up, even for you, Frank. Take me with my encumbrances, or not at all. _C'est tout simple!_" Watching his looks as the steersman watches a coming wave, something warned her to avoid the imminent shock. Like a skilful pilot, she luffed, so to speak, several points to the windward of truth. "He has nobody else to depend on in the world," she said, eyeing Frank's face with a touching and plaintive gaze. "People blame me, I dare say, but I know I'm doing right, for after all, is he not my own sister's child?" Frank drew a long breath, looking immensely relieved, yet conscious the while of a vague perception, not entirely agreeable, that the last link in his fetters was about to be riveted for good and all.