"My sister is in that room. Open the door this instant, I command you." "I will not obey you!" "You shall!" "I will not!" Ethel's face was corpse-like in its pallor, her black eyes glowed with light. "Kay!" she called, in a low, menacing voice, and the woman shuddered. At the same time a voice in the locked room called plaintively: "Ethel! Ethel! darling sister Ethel!" "That is my sister's voice," cried Ethel wildly. "Woman, your defiance drives me mad! If you do not instantly open that door and release Precious I shall set the mastiff on you. He will tear you limb from limb!" "I'll murder you first!" growled the woman, edging toward the club on the floor. "Kay will protect me," the girl answered dauntlessly. "Once more, will you open the door? No? Kay!" The mastiff, leaping and yelping at the door, turned his head, and the woman's defiance all fled. "Take him away; let me get at the door, and I'll open it. The key's in my pocket," she growled. Ethel drew Kay away and talked to him coaxingly while Mrs. Warwick pushed the key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door a little way. "Go in now, you and the dog," she cried. "The girl's bed-rid, and can't come out to you, and you can't leave that devil outside to devour me." Ethel was so excited that she did not dream of danger or treachery to herself. She and Kay pushed past the woman, and entered the room. That instant the door was banged and locked on the outside. CHAPTER VIII. "IF I EVER HAVE A LOVER HE MUST BE GRAND AND HANDSOME." "He to whom I give affection Must have princely mien and guise; If devotion lay below me I would stoop not for the prize. Bend down to me very gently, But bend always from above; I would scorn where I could pity, I must honor where I love."--PHEBE CARY. Ethel heard the key click in the lock, but in the excitement of finding her sister she attached no significance to the fact. She turned eagerly to the bed where lay a slender form clothed in a cheap blue wrapper of eider-down, over which swept a torrent of curling hair like sunshine. But, oh, that face! Could it be Precious, the laughing, dimple-faced darling, with her cheeks like rose-leaves, her ripe red lips, her glorious eyes like blue pansies in the sunshine? That wan little face on the coarse pillow was all thin and pale, with great shadows under the hollow eyes that were dim and faded from constant weeping. The little white hands were wasted so that the bewitching dimples were gone from the knuckles and the blue veins showed with painful clearness through the transparent skin. At that piteous sight all the jealous hardness went out of Ethel's heart. She sprang with open arms to Precious, and clasped her to her breast, while Kay hovered over them in delight, licking the little feeble hands of his darling young mistress.