"I called at your place yesterday," said Alfred, "to tell you about the fire, and where we had moved to, but you were not at home." "No; and I kept from Soho purposely. I was angry with Lizzie, and I was not pleased with your sister. They will have to learn, if they have not learned already, that I am not to be trifled with." Alfred had no reply to make to this; he felt that his best plan would be to listen quietly, and to say as few words as possible. "By heavens;" exclaimed Mr. Sheldrake, with more passion that he usually displayed, "I think I have been patient long enough--too long! No other man but me would have stood it. Every advance that I make--except," he added with a sneer, "those advances I make to you--is met as if I were an enemy instead of a friend. It is time for this to be settled. I'll know very soon whether I'm to be a friend or foe. I can be as good an enemy as a friend, and that I'll prove. With you, now, which is it, friend or foe?" "Which _can_ it be," answered Alfred moodily, "but friend?" "Out-and-out friend, eh? No half-measures--thorough!" "Thorough, out-and-out!" responded Alfred a little less despondently. "No beating about the bush? No concealments, no double-dealing?" "None." "And you say this," pursued Mr. Sheldrake with remorseless tenacity--he had been so goaded that it was necessary he should revenge himself upon some one--"you say this not because it is for your interest to say it--not because you are in my debt, and I could shut you up at any moment I please--but because you believe it, because you know that I am straightforward, honest-minded, open-hearted?" "What other motive can I have for saying it?" "But say it plainly. You wish me to continue your friend, and to be my friend, for the reasons that I have given?" "Yes, for those reasons, and no other." And as Alfred spoke the lie which was forced from him by fear, Mr. Sheldrake laughed lightly, and with an open scorn of the avowal, which brought the blood to the younger man's cheek. It brought the blood also to the cheek of another person, not in the room. Crouching outside the door, at the top of the landing, was Lizzie, listening with beating heart, and hearing every word that passed. She could see clearly everything in the room, and being in the dark herself, could not be detected. A small lumber-room, the door of which she had partly opened, and which swung noiselessly on its hinges, was ready to afford her the means of concealment should the suspicions of Mr. Sheldrake be aroused. She saw the insolent triumphant manner of Mr. Sheldrake, and she thought for a moment that if she were a man, she would kill him; but she saw also the abject manner of her lover, and her passion was subdued by fear. "If I thought you were deceiving me, Alf," said Mr. Sheldrake, "I should know what to do." "What makes you speak in this way to me?" Alfred mustered up sufficient courage to ask. "If you doubt me, try me."