'Surely you don't mean to carry on this game ever and always?' 'Ever and always, while I am a dependant here.' 'But I will take you away from here, and you need be a dependant no longer,' said he, while his countenance brightened and his manner warmed, as he utterly mistook her meaning. 'My allowance is most handsome, thanks to Lord--Lord--to my grandfather, and he can't last for ever. The old fellow is sixty-eight if he is a day. Forget all past unpleasantness; think only of the future, and all I can make it for you. I will give you any length of time if you will only give me your love.' 'Never, I tell you. Oh, this is intolerable!' exclaimed the girl passionately, finding that he still barred her way. 'Beware, Dulcie,' said he, as his shifty eyes flashed. 'The world and success in it are for him who knows how to wait; meantime, let us be friends. Friendship is said to be more enduring than love.' 'Well--we shall never be even friends again, Shafto.' 'Why?' 'Well do you know _why_. And let me remind you that all sin brings its own punishment in this world.' 'If found out,' he interrupted. 'And in the next, whether found out here or not.' 'Why the deuce do you preach thus to me?' he asked savagely, his fears again awakened, so true is it that 'Many a shaft at random sent Finds mark the archer never meant.' 'And what do you take me for that you treat me thus, and talk to me in this manner?' 'What do I take you for? By your treatment of me I take you to be an insolent, cruel, and heartless fellow, who can be worse at times.' 'Take care! the pedestal you stand on may give way. It lies with me to smash it, and some fine day you may be sorry for the way in which you have dared to treat me, Shafto----' 'Gyle,' interrupted Dulcie almost spitefully. 'Melfort, d--n you!' he retorted coarsely, and losing all command over himself. Tears now sprang to her eyes, and then, as he half feared to carry the matter so far with her, he apologized. 'Let me pass, sir,' said she. 'Won't you give me one little kiss first, Dulcie?' She made no reply, but fixed her lovely dark blue eyes upon him with an expression of such loathing and contempt that even he was stung to the heart by it. 'Let me pass, sir!' she exclaimed again. He stood aside to let her do so, and she swept by, holding her golden head haughtily erect; but Dulcie feared him now more than ever, and certainly she had roused revenge in his heart, with certain vague emotions of alarm. Of all the thousands of homes in Scotland and England how miserable and unlucky was the chance that cast her under the same roof with the evil-minded Shafto! thought the girl in the solitude of her own room. But then, otherwise, she would never have known and shared the sweet and flattering friendship of Finella Melfort; and, as she never knew what wicked game Shafto might play, he would perhaps succeed in depriving her even of that solace as the end of his persecution.