‘Look here, Mrs. Severn,’ cried Frank, driven wild in his turn; ‘I have loved her since the first moment I saw her under those curtains. Was it my doing? I was listening to the music, not thinking of any one; and you called Alice, and she came. And I have been struggling against it ever since. I will tell you the truth. I was to marry money,--everybody had made up their minds to it. I was to have a rich wife and give up India, and live a life that would suit me much better at home. That is the truth. And I tried,--tried hard to carry it out. But I had seen Alice, and I could not. To-day when I came I meant to try to say good-bye. I meant it honestly, upon my life. And that other girl is prettier, if you will speak so,’ cried the young man, with a kind of brutality, ‘than Alice. Judge if it is only for that----’ ‘Then you will repent,’ said the padrona, blazing up into an inconsistent jealousy and resentment. ‘Believe me, Mr. Renton, it is far better to carry out your intention, and leave my penniless girl alone.’ The young man started up with a muttered oath. The moment of passion was over, but that of mutual exasperation had come. The light of battle kindled in the padrona’s eyes. She would have been glad to be rid of him at any price; and yet,--inconsistent woman,--though she hated him for loving Alice, the thought that he had struggled against that love, the thought that her child had been put in competition with another, set her all a-flame. ‘By heaven, you do me injustice!’ cried Frank. ‘Why will you misunderstand what I say? Let me tell you everything from the beginning. Is it just to judge me unheard? I am Laurie’s brother, whom you are fond of; and Alice is mine as well as yours. She has no doubt of me. Why cannot we be friends, we two? I should be your son----’ ‘It must be for another time,’ said the padrona, letting her voice relapse into languor. The sense of exhaustion had been thoroughly real when she expressed it before; but now, it must be allowed, it was exasperating. The elastic soul had touched the ground, and rebounded ever so little. But she had rebounded in a perverse, and not an amiable way. It was not the calm of despair, but an active wretchedness in which there was hope. And Frank, too, got set on edge, as she was, and left the house with but one soft word from Alice to console him as he went, flaming with opposition and resentment. He could turn the tables on her yet, if he were to try. He could make her regret her interference, if he would. And then a visionary Alice glided into the young man’s imagination, holding out her soft arms. Vex her because her mother was vexatious to him? Ah, no! not for the world! CHAPTER III. EXCHANGED INTO THE 200TH.