“I’ll watch you safely in,” and he took off his cap; “you’ll be all right from here. Good night.” “Aren’t you coming to dinner? They won’t be back.” “No!” he returned, for to be hidden in Erceldonne’s house and eat his bread any longer was impossible. “You had better. You won’t see us much longer,” she said coolly. “Do you know Mr. Egerton’s going to take us away?” “If----” he stopped himself. It was no business of his. If she chose to marry Erle, regardless of his past and Andria’s, that was her affair. Till Andria told her, he had no right to. “If what?” “Nothing,” he said awkwardly. “You are treating me like a child again, just as I had begun to like you!” she cried pettishly, and the very childlike ring of her voice appealed to him. Yet he stood utterly silent. If he, a broken man, a penniless adventurer, should make love to a girl who eavesdropping had told him was an heiress, the thing would not be called by a pretty name. He did not care two straws for the mystery about her if only she were the waif she seemed. “Yet after all,” he thought swiftly, “even a broken-down devil like me would make her a better husband than Erle--supposing he’s free, which I don’t believe! Because she may have money and I have none am I going to hand her over to the first roué who wants her? By George! I’m going to do no such thing.” But even he dared not tell her what he knew about Raimond Erle. In the moonlight she stepped to his side like a lovely ghost, and as she brushed him in passing, a quick rapture ran through him. There was no sense in reasoning, he loved her--for life and death and the world to come. At a word from her he would sweep Erle and his father from her path like straws. He would not tell her the trap she was in, she must choose for herself freely and without bias. But he would not let her go. If she should learn to love Erle--and Heaven knew why, but many women did--what would she feel when Andria made the scene she was sure to do? “Why don’t you speak?” she broke out petulantly. “I know what you’re thinking--that if Mr. Egerton is going to take us away you’re going to start off through the bush to-night and try for the town there is across the island! You’re going to wash your hands of Andria and me.” “What else can I do, if you’re going back with him?” and his voice was utterly grim. “You can go with us.” “In the first place I wouldn’t go, and in the second they wouldn’t take me. No; if you’re going in the yacht I should be off to-night, if it weren’t for leaving you and Mrs.--Miss Holbeach to that crazy brute I let in last night.” The girl recoiled as if he had struck her. Heriot cursed himself for having haggled at Andria’s name. But it was not that.