He made no reply to this offer, for a step outside the door caused him to mutter something very like an oath between his teeth. The door was thrown open. Mabyn marched in, a little pale, but very erect. "Mabyn, leave us alone for a moment or two," said Wenna, turning away so as to hide the tears on her face. "I will not. I want to speak a word or two to Mr. Roscorla." "Mabyn, I want you to go away just now." Mabyn went over to her sister and took her by the hand: "Wenna, dear, go away to your own room. You've had quite enough--you are trembling all over. I suppose he'll make me tremble next." "Really, I think your interference is lather extraordinary, Miss Mabyn," said Mr. Roscorla, striving to contain his rage. "I beg your pardon," said Mabyn meekly. "I only want to say a word or two. Wouldn't it be better here than before the servants?" With that she led Wenna away. In a minute or two she returned. Mr. Roscorla would rather have been shut up in a den with a hungry tigress. "I am quite at your service," he said with a bitter irony. "I suppose you have some very important communication to make, considering the way in which you--" "Interfered? Yes, it is time that I interfered," Mabyn said, still quite calm and a trifle pale. "Mr. Roscorla, to be frank, I don't like you, and perhaps I am not quite fair to you. I am only a young girl, and don't know what the world would say about your relations with Wenna. But Wenna is my sister, and I see she is wretched; and her wretchedness--Well, that comes of her engagement to you." She was standing before him with her eyes cast down, apparently determined to be very moderate in her speech. But there was a cruel frankness in her words which hurt Mr. Roscorla a good deal more than any tempest of passion into which she might have worked herself. "Is that all?" said he. "You have not startled me with any revelations." "I was going to say," continued Mabyn, "that a gentleman who has really a regard for a girl would not insist on her keeping a promise which only rendered her unhappy. I don't see what you are to gain by it. I suppose you--you expect Wenna to marry you? Well, I dare say if you called on her to punish herself that way, she might do it. But what good would that do you? Would you like to have a wife who was in love with another man?" "You have become quite logical, Miss Mabyn," said he, "and argument suits you better than getting into a rage. And much of what you say is quite true. You _are_ a very young girl. You don't know much of what the world would say about anything. But being furnished with these admirable convictions, did it never occur to you that you might not be acting wisely in blundering into an affair of which you know nothing?"