"Yes, yes, you do. You must, for he is true and good at heart. You will forgive him--for my sake, Eve. Eve, I am on my knees to you. If you have one spark of gratitude for the past, listen to my prayer." "Aunt, dearest aunt, my more than mother," sobbed Eve, completely carried away by the agony of one who had been everything to her for years and years of her life; "I will do all you wish. I am your child. Tell me what to do, and I will do it; for I love you, dearest aunt, as if you were my own mother." "I knew it, I knew it, my darling, my own darling," cried Mrs Glaire, throwing her hands upwards. "Saved, saved! Oh, God! oh, God! Thou hast heard my prayer." Eve shrank from her for an instant, frightened at her wild appeal, but only for the moment; the next she had thrown herself on her knees beside her, and the two women were sobbing and caressing each other tenderly, till the calm came after their storm of weeping, and Eve prevailed upon the trembling mother to lie down upon her bed, where exhausted nature at last prevailed, and she sank to sleep. But only to mutter strangely of "Daisy Banks--poor Daisy Banks," and utter at times the most piteous sighs; while, as Eve watched her, the memory of that which she had promised came upon her with all its force, and a feeling of depression and of utter misery stole over her, so great that she could hardly bear to sit alone. She had promised to be Richard's wife--promised again, and that it should be soon; promised to save him, when that strange and wondrous joy, that glorious light of love that was springing up in her breast, frightening her by its intensity, was ever expanding, but must now be crushed out--for ever. What was she to do? To save Richard--to be his wife. Not so hard a task a few months since, but now! Oh, it was dreadful. And yet that was a traitorous feeling that she must crush; and at last, sobbing bitterly, Eve Pelly knelt by her sleeping aunt, and prayed earnestly, as woman ever prayed before, that Murray Selwood might never care for her, and that she might be a good and tender wife to the man who sat at the bottom of the garden smoking a cigar, and uttering a few oaths from time to time against the woman on her knees. What time he also defiled the flowers around the rustic seat, and cut them with his stick, till he started to his feet in an agony of dread, for a shadow fell across him as some one approached noiselessly over the velvet lawn, and looking up, there stood the foreman, gazing full in his face, as he exclaimed-- "Richard Glaire, I've come to have a few words wi' you." Volume 3, Chapter IV. A NEW BROTHER. Joe Banks stood staring round the room defiantly, while the sentries kept the door ajar. "Shoot the door, fools," he said sharply; and then, as it was closed, he turned on Barker, who, rising, said smoothly, "May I ask what our friend, Mr Joseph Banks, wants here at a private meeting?"