“Yes. You--you know our agreement. The day we are married it shall be in your power to take all this trouble off your father’s shoulders. I’ve said what I’ll do, and I’ll do it. The morning of the marriage I shall pay into the Wainford Bank the sum of fifty thousand pounds in your name. You can do what you like with it. Pitch it in the gutter, buy diamonds, or clear the squire----” Her head drooped lower and lower, then she raised it slowly, and waited for him to continue, for she felt that more was coming. “Why should we wait?” he continued, insidiously. “I hate long engagements; and the sooner we are married the sooner will the squire be rid of this trouble of his. Will you marry me in a fortnight, Olivia?” She started, and every drop of blood seemed to leave her face. She could hear her father’s and Faradeane’s footsteps outside, could catch a word or two spoken by the latter, and his musical, true voice seemed to strike in with that of the man at her side and caused it to sound falser. “In a fortnight?” she breathed, and her voice sounded strained and harsh. “Why not?” he insisted. “You can get everything ready by that time. But you are not the one to think of clothes and all that sort of thing when your father’s happiness is at stake.” “No,” she said in a hard, mechanical voice. “But----” and her hands locked together. “Give me another week!” “Very well,” he said, and his eyes shone with satisfaction, for he had expected her to plead for a month at least. “Say three weeks, then. Three weeks!” his face flushed and he smiled, “that will give me time to do up The Maples and make it fit for its mistress, its queen. Ah, how happy we will be, dearest! Where shall we go? Italy, Switzerland, the lakes?” and he clasped her hand, which seemed to grow colder each moment. “There is nothing in the world you may want that you shan’t have, I promise you--nothing! I’m rich, as you know, and I’m prepared to spend any amount you like; you shall see.” She looked at him. It seemed to her marvelous that he should so little understand her. “I want nothing--nothing but to see papa happy!” she said. “Very well,” he assented, “and you will do so, and have the satisfaction of feeling that it’s all your doing! It isn’t every girl who could pull her father out of the mud as you will do.” She winced; every word he uttered jarred upon her as it did upon the squire. “I--I think I will go upstairs,” she said. “I have a headache to-night.” “Oh,” he said in a tone of disappointment; then he added, with a cunning glance, “Don’t forget you promised to sing that duet with Faradeane.” Her lips quivered, and she turned her head aside. “I had forgotten,” she said, simply. He got up to hide the evil look which crossed his face. “Yes, you’ll stop to please him, my lady,” he muttered. “But wait a while, wait a while!” Faradeane and the squire came in, and the former went up to her.