e coming on after Easter, and he had some
other business, so that, in the form of words of which she longed to cure
him, he told her that he was about to trespass on her hospitality for a
week or fortnight.

'As long as ever you please,' she said. 'I am glad to have some one to
sit opposite to me and tell me home news,' and they met at the station,
she having been on an expedition on her own account, so that they drove
home together.

No sooner were they within the house door than the parlour-maid began,
'That man has been here again, ma'am.'

'What, Jones?' said Bertha, in evident annoyance.

'Yes, ma'am, and I am sorry to say he saw little Cea. The child had run
down after me when I answered the door, and he asked her if she did not
know her own father, and if she would come with him. "No," she says,
"I'm Miss Morton's," and he broke out with his ugly laugh, and says he,
"You be, be you, you unnatural little vagabond?"--those were his very
words, ma'am--"but a father is a father, and if he gives up his rights he
must know the reason why." He wanted me, the good-for-nothing, to give
him half a sovereign at once, or he would take off the child on the spot,
but, by good luck, she had been frightened and run away, the dear, and I
had got the door between me and him, so I told him to be off till you
came home, or I would call for the police. So he was off for that time.'

'Quite right, Alice,' said Miss Morton, and then, leading the way
upstairs and throwing herself down on a chair, she exclaimed, 'There, it
ought to be a triumph to you, Northmoor! You told me that I should have
trouble about poor little Cea's father, the brute!'

'Is he levying blackmail on you?'

'Yes. It is horribly weak of me, I know, and I can scarcely believe it
of myself, but one can't abandon a child to a wretch like that, and he
has the law on his side.'

'Are you quite sure of that? He deserted her, I think you said. If you
could establish that, or prove a conviction against him--'

'Oh, I know she might be sent to an industrial school if I took it before
a magistrate, but if the other alternative would be destruction, that
would be misery to her. See--' and there was a little tap at the door.
'Come in, Cea. There, make your curtsey to his lordship.'

A pretty little fair-haired pale-cheeked girl, daintily but simply
dressed, came in and made her curtsey very prettily, and replied nicely
to Lord Northmoor's good-natured gree