--"perhaps, young lady, you'll explain what
you've come for?"

The statue slowly pointed to Leander. "I come for him," she said
calmly. "He has vowed himself to me; he is mine!"

Matilda, after staring, incredulous, for some moments at the intruder,
sank with a wild scream upon the sofa, and hid her face.

Leander flew to her side. "Matilda, my own," he implored, "don't be
alarmed. She won't touch _you_; it's _me_ she's come after."

Matilda rose and repulsed him with a sudden energy. "How dare you!" she
cried, hysterically. "I see it all now: the ring, the--the cloak; _she_
has had them all the time!.... Fool that I was--silly, trusting fool!"
And she broke out into violent hysterics.

"Go away at once, hypocrite!" enjoined her mother, addressing the
distracted hairdresser, as he stood, dumb and impotent, before her. "Do
you want to kill my poor child? Take yourself off!"

"For goodness' sake, go, Leandy," added his aunt. "I can't bear the
sight of you!"

"Leander, I wait," said the statue. "Come!"

He stood there a moment longer, looking blankly at the two elder women
as they bustled about the prostrate girl, and then he gave a bitter,
defiant laugh.

His fate was too strong for him. No one was in the mood to listen to any
explanation; it was all over! "I'm coming," he said to the goddess. "I
may as well; I'm not wanted here."

And, with a smothered curse, he dashed blindly from the room, and out
into the foggy street.

AN APPEAL

XII.

"If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
If you did know for whom I gave the ring,
And how unwillingly I left the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure."

_Merchant of Venice._

Leander strode down the street in a whirl of conflicting emotions. At
the very moment when he seemed to have prevailed over Miss Parkinson's
machinations, his evil fate had stepped in and undone him for ever! What
would become of him without Matilda? As he was thinking of his gloomy
prospects, he noticed, for the first time, that the statue was keeping
step by his side, and he turned on her with smothered rage. "Well," he
began, "I hope you're satisfied?"

"Quite, Leander, quite satisfied; for have I not found you?"

"Oh, you've found me right enough," he replied, with a groan--"trust you
for that! What I should like to know is, how the dickens you did it?"

"Thus," she replied: "I awoke, and it was dark, and you were not there,
a