'_What_ do you know?' he asked huskily, and changing colour at this new and stinging remark. 'That poor Florian is facing such perils in South Africa,' she replied in a low voice. 'Pooh! is that all?' said Shafto, greatly relieved; 'he'll get on, as well as he can expect, no doubt.' 'Amid all the wealth that surrounds you, could you not have done something for him?' asked the girl, wistfully and reproachfully. 'Poor relations are a deuced bother, and here they dislike his name somehow.' As his fears passed away Shafto's aspect became menacing, and knowing her helplessness and her dependent position in the house to which he was the heir, for a moment or two the girl's spirit failed her. 'Well, what do you mean to say now?' he asked abruptly. 'About whom?' she asked softly and wonderingly. 'Me!' 'I shall say nothing, Shafto--nothing to injure you at least--with reference to old times.' 'What the devil could you say that would injure me in the eyes of my own family?' Dulcie thought of the locket stolen from her so roughly, of his subsequent villainy therewith, and of his tampering with her long and passionate letter to Florian, but remained judiciously silent, while striving to look at him with defiant haughtiness. 'I am speaking to you, Dulcie; will you have the politeness to attend to me?' 'To what end and purpose?' She eyed him with chilling steadiness now, though her heart was full of fear; but his shifty grey eyes quailed under the cold gaze he challenged, and thought how closely her bearing and her words resembled those of Finella. 'You don't like me, Dulcie,' said he with a bitter smile, 'that is pretty evident.' 'No, I simply hate you!' said she, losing all control over herself. 'You are charmingly frank, Miss Carlyon, but hate is a game that two can play at; so beware, I say, _beware!_ I must hold the winning cards.' 'Oh, how brave and generous you are to threaten and torture a poor, weak girl whom you call an old friend, and under your own roof!' 'And the dear dove of Florian--Florian the private soldier!' he sneered fiercely. 'How horrible, how cruel!' she wailed, and covered her eyes with her hands. 'Never mind,' he resumed banteringly, 'you have got back your locket again.' 'I wonder how you dare to refer to it!' she exclaimed, and for a moment the angry gleam of her eyes was replaced by a soft, dreamy smile, as she recalled the time and place when Florian clasped the locket round her neck, when the bells of Revelstoke Church were heard on the same breeze that wafted around them the perfumes of the sweetbriar and wild apple blossoms in the old quarry near the sea, which was their trysting-place. How happy they were then, and how bright the future even in its utter vacuity, when seen through the rosy medium of young love! Shafto divined her thoughts, for he said with jealous anger-- 'You used the term dare with reference to your precious locket?'