"She--she laughed at me." He beat the air before him, and swallowed hard, and stamped his foot, in a rage at himself that he could not control himself more easily. "I did not make--make love to her; I am not a boy. I told her that I wanted her, that I wanted to marry her. And then she--she laughed." I could imagine the scene; and yet I think, if she had known all the deadly things that were to spring out of her light laughter in the wood that day--the lives that were to be shattered, and the souls brought into the dust--she might not have done it. She was but a child, and she did not know the man she had to deal with; he had meant to humble her, and she had humbled him too much. He turned away, choking; although I despised the man, and although I remembered my own sorrow, I yet sorrowed for him. When he went on again he had got himself into some condition of calmness. "Then I saw you in the woods, and I wondered that she should meet you as she did, because I knew you had not met before. It was your cursed youth," he broke out, his violence showing again for a moment--"you could speak to her with a voice that was not mine, and that I did not understand. That's all there is to say; I shall never speak of it again." I did not know what to say, and so I thought it best to say nothing. Once more he made the circuit of the room, and once more he came back to me. Although I was silent, simply from lack of words, I knew instinctively that he felt himself to be a meaner thing than I was, because of his weakness and his rage, and that he hated me for that knowledge. "I don't like the thought that you are not friends with Hockley," he said, as he came back to me, and laid his hand on my shoulder. "After all, this girl is going out of our lives, and will be nothing to us in the future. That bone of contention is gone, and I want you to meet Hockley. He's got a loose tongue, and he's not over nice in his manners; but he's not a bad sort. Say you'll meet him." "I'd rather not," I said, with a remembrance of what the man must have said concerning Barbara and myself. "You will be doing me a service, if you meet him, and treat him fairly," said Fanshawe, impressively. "Come, my dear boy," he pleaded, "I really want you to help me in a difficult matter. Swallow your pride, and meet the man." "How shall I be helping you in that?" I asked. "In a certain way--to a slight extent, that is--I am in his power," said my guardian. "Over a matter of speculation," he added hurriedly, "a little money I've lost." I remembered that demand for money made by Hockley, and his threat when it was refused; I felt that I couldn't very well refuse to help the man who was the only real friend I had in the world. After a moment of hesitation, I grudgingly said that I would meet him, if Jervis Fanshawe wished.