swung to and fro in the old
oak-cased "grandfather's clock," before another word was uttered.

Mrs Ellis stood with her face working, as if premonitory to bursting
out into a fit of sobbing; James Ellis felt something rising in his
throat, and looked on with a grim kind of jealous pleasure at the
lovers' embrace; and Barnett broke the silence by making a strange
grinding noise with his teeth.

"Do you--are you going to allow this?" he panted out at last.

James Ellis made a deprecating gesture with his hands, and looked
uneasily at his wife, who had crossed to Grange, laid her hands upon his
shoulder, and said gently--

"And we thought you were dead--we thought you were dead."

"As I should have been, Mrs Ellis, to you all," cried the young man
proudly, "if I could not have come back to you like this."

By this time Barnett had fully recovered the speech of which jealous
rage and disappointment had nearly deprived him, and after a savage
scowl at Grange, he turned upon the bailiff.

"Look here, Mr Ellis, is this your house? Are you master here?"

Ellis made an angry gesture now.

"My good sir," he cried; "you see: what can I do?"

"Order this fellow--this beggar--this impostor out. He has no business
here."

Mary turned upon him fiercely, but her angry look faded out, and gave
place to a smile of content, as she now linked her hands together about
Grange's strong right arm and looked gently in his face, as if to say,
"Don't be angry, he hardly knows what he says."

Maddened more by this, Barnett stepped forward to separate them, but,
roused now in turn, James Ellis stepped between.

"Yes," he said firmly; "this is my house, and I am master here, Daniel
Barnett. No violence, if you please."

"As much violence as is necessary to turn this fellow out," roared the
young man. "I claim your promise, my rights. Mary, you are by your
father's words my affianced wife; keep away from that man. Mrs Ellis,
stand aside, or I will not be answerable for the consequences. You
coward!" he cried to Grange; "you screen yourself between two women.
Now then, out with you!"

One moment John Grange had been standing there calm and happy, with the
women clinging to him; the next, by a quick movement, strong yet gentle,
he had shaken himself free; and as Barnett seized him by the throat to
eject him from the room, he was perfectly transformed. For, with almost
superhuman strength, he seized his rival in return, quickly