"Hah! I thought so. Then look here, sir, you have been investing your money for the benefit of that poor woman and her child." No answer. "Christie Bayle: do you love that woman still?" "Sir Gordon! No; I will not be angry. Yes; as a man might love a dear sister smitten by affliction; and her child as if she were my own." "Hah! and you have had invested so much money--your own, for their benefit. Why have you done this?" "I thought it was my duty towards the widow and fatherless in their affliction," said Bayle simply; and Sir Gordon turned and peered round in the brave, honest face at his side to find it slightly flushed, but ready to meet his gaze with fearless frankness. "Ah," sighed Sir Gordon at last, "it was not fair." "Not fair?" said Bayle wonderingly. "No, sir. You might have let me do half." VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER THREE. BY THE FIRE'S GLOW. "Won't you have the lamp lit, Miss Millicent?" "No, Thisbe, not yet," said Mrs Hallam, in a low, dreamy voice, and without a word the faithful follower of her mistress in trouble went softly out, closing the door, and leaving mother and daughter alone. "She's got one of her fits on," mused Thisbe. "Ah, how it does come over me sometimes like a temptation--just about once a month ever since--to have one good go at her and tell her I told her so; that it was all what might be expected of wedding a handsome man. `Didn't I warn you?' I could say. `Didn't I tell you how it would be?' But no: I couldn't say a word to the poor dear, and her going on believing in the bad scamp as she does all these years. She's different to me. It's just for all the world like a temptation that comes over me, driving me like to speak, but I've kept my mouth shut all these years and I'm going to do it still." Thisbe had reached her little brightly-kept kitchen, where she stood thoughtfully gazing at the fire, with one hand upon her hip, for some minutes. Then a peculiar change came upon Thisbe's hard face. It seemed as if it had been washed over with something sweet, which softened it; then it suggested the idea that she was about to sneeze, and ended by a violent spasmodic twitch, quite a convulsion. Thisbe's body remained motionless, though her face was altered, and by degrees her eyes, after brightening and sparkling, grew suffused and dreamy, as she gazed straight before her and seemed to be thinking very deeply. Her countenance was free from the spasm now, and as the candle shone upon it, it brought prominently into notice the fact that in her love of cleanliness Thisbe was not so particular as she might have been in the process of rinsing; for the fact was patent that she rubbed herself profusely with soap, and left enough upon her face after her ablutions to produce the effect of an elastic varnish or glaze.