Sylvia put her pretty hand over his moustache. "I won't hear it, Paul," she cried vehemently, with a stamp of her foot. "How dare you? As if you weren't all I have to love in the world now poor father--is--is de-a-d," and she began to weep. "I did not love him as I ought to have done, Paul." "My own, he would not let you love him very much." "N-o-o," said Sylvia, drying her eyes on Paul's handkerchief, which he produced. "I don't know why. Sometimes he was nice, and sometimes he wasn't. I never could understand him, and you know, Paul, we didn't treat him nicely." "No," admitted Beecot, frankly, "but he forgave us." "Oh, yes, poor dear, he did! He was quite nice when he said we could marry and he would allow us money. You saw him?" "I did. He came to the hospital. Didn't he tell you when he returned, Sylvia?" "I never saw him," she wept. "He never came upstairs, but went out, and I went to bed. He left the door leading to the stairs open, too, on that night, a thing he never did before. And then the key of the shop. Bart used to hang it on a nail in the cellar and father would put it into his pocket after supper. Deborah couldn't find it in his clothes, and when she went afterwards to the cellar it was on the nail. On that night, Paul, father did everything different to what he usually did." "He seems to have had some mental trouble," said Paul, gently, "and I believe it was connected with that brooch. When he spoke to me at the hospital he said he would let you marry me, and would allow us an income, if I gave him the serpent brooch to take to America." "But why did he want the brooch?" asked Sylvia, puzzled. "Ah!" said Beecot, with great significance, "if we could find out his reason we would learn who killed him and why he was killed." Sylvia wept afresh on this reference to the tragedy which was yet fresh in her memory: but as weeping would not bring back the dead, and Paul was much distressed at the sight of her tears, she dried her eyes for the hundredth time within the last few days and sat again on the sofa by her lover. There they built castles in the air. "I tell you what, Sylvia," said Paul, reflectively; "after this will business is settled and a few weeks have elapsed, we can marry." "Oh, Paul, not for a year! Think of poor father's memory." "I do think of it, my darling, and I believe I am saying what your father himself would have said. The circumstances of the case are strange, as you are left with a lot of money and without a protector. You know I love you for yourself, and would take you without a penny, but unless we marry soon, and you give me a husband's right, you will be pestered by people wanting to marry you." Paul thought of Grexon Hay when he made this last remark. "But I wouldn't listen to them," cried Sylvia, with a flush, "and Debby would soon send them away. I love you dearest, dear."