Madam Carroll took down her handkerchief, and the two women faced him with startled gaze. Sara was calm; but Madam Carroll's eyes, at first only startled, were now growing frightened. She turned her small face towards her daughter dumbly, as if for help. The girl drew her mother more closely to her side. "And what right have you to suppose anything?" she said to Owen, with composure. "Are you our guardian?" "Would that I were!" answered Owen, with deepest feeling in his tone. "I don't 'suppose' anything, Miss Carroll--I know. I have been unfortunate enough to see you with this man, or going to meet him, and it has made me wretched. But do not be troubled--no one else has seen it, and with me you are perfectly safe; I would guard you with my life. I had intended to expose him; I am in possession of some facts which tell heavily against him (Madam Carroll knows what they are); but now how can I, when I fear that he--when I know that you--" he paused; his voice was trembling a little, and he wished to control the tremor. "And if I should tell you that there was no occasion for either your fears or your advice?" said Sara Carroll, after a moment's silence. She raised her eyes again, and met his gaze steadily. "If I should tell you that Mr. Dupont--to whom you object so strongly--had the right to be with me as much as he pleased, and that I had given him this right, surely you would then understand that your warning came quite too late, and that both your opinion and your advice were superfluous? And you would, perhaps, spare us further conversation on a matter that concerns only ourselves." "Am I to believe this?" said Owen. [Illustration: "THE GIRL DREW HER MOTHER MORE CLOSELY TO HER SIDE."] "You have it from me directly--I don't know what better authority you would have. I tell you in order to show you, decisively, that further interference on your part will be unnecessary. It is a secret as yet, and, for the present, we wish it to remain one; we trust to you not to betray it. And I think you will now keep to yourself, will you not, what you know, or fancy you know, against him?" She looked at him inquiringly. "If I could only have seen your father!" said Owen, with bitterest regret. Her face changed, her arm dropped from her mother's shoulders; she turned abruptly from him.