“I must decline your offer, and I do not wish to be your pet. Please go now, for I do not like to have you in my room.” “This is a poor return for my kindness to you,” he exclaimed, overmastered with sudden anger at her coldness. “I am sorry to seem ungrateful--but please go,” she answered entreatingly. “Are you aware that I can discharge you and thrust you penniless into the cold world?” he demanded harshly. “Yes, yes, I realize your power for good and evil in this place, and I entreat you as you are strong be merciful!” she faltered, pointing steadfastly at the door. He laughed softly. “I was only jesting with you! I love you too well, sweet little Eva, to harm you. Forget what I said, since you scorn my proffered kindness, and let us be friends again. Will you shake hands and forgive?” “No, no--but I shall scream unless you leave the room instantly!” she exclaimed, with rising anger at his obstinacy, every maidenly instinct taking alarm at his presence there in her private room at night. “Do not scream, I am going,” he started across the room, then smiled back at her: “Just one kiss, little Eva. I am a lonely man with no one to love me.” “You have a wife and children,” she reminded him, so cuttingly that he withdrew with a muttered imprecation, and Eva flew at the door, slammed and locked it in a fury, and sank sobbing into a chair. “The wretch! Surely he meant to insult me! There was more than fatherly kindness in his eyes. There was wickedness! Oh, I hate him--I will not stay here! I will go away to-morrow!” she sobbed in a passion of anger and misery, wondering where under heaven she could go unless it were back to kind old Goody Brown. She wondered what Doctor Rupert would say when he came and found her gone. “He will wonder if I ran away from his love,” she sobbed, and just then came a low tapping on the door, and she sprang upright, shivering. “The wretch! Has he dared to return?” she exclaimed angrily. A low voice called through the keyhole: “It is only Ada, my dear. May I come in and speak to you?” Little Eva unlocked the door and drew her friend inside, quickly turning the key again. Ada Winton was the attendant Eva loved best of all, a pretty, sparkling brunette whose bright black eyes instantly saw the agitation of the unhappy girl. “You have been crying, and I saw old St. Clair dodging out of your room. What did he want?” she asked pointblank. “I--I hardly know,” the poor girl answered, so forlornly that Ada exclaimed brusquely: “Up to his meanness again, eh, under the mask of fatherly kindness? Wanted to have you for his darling little pet, and send you off to school to fit you for the place, didn’t he?” “Oh, Ada, were you listening at the keyhole?” “Oh, no, dear; but the kind, fatherly old man has talked the same way to me--you aren’t the only pebble on the beach, my darling!” returned the vivacious Ada, a little slangily.