do it, Mr. Stair. If
you can make your daughter understand--"

"The jade will do as she is bid," he cut in wrathfully. "If she will
drag my good name in the mire, I'm damned if she sha'n't pay the scot.
And now about the settlements, Captain Ireton; you'll be making her
legatee residuary?"

At this I saw his drift again, most clearly; that he would never stickle
for his daughter's honor, but for the quieting of his title to my
father's lands--a title that my cousin Septimus might dispute. It was
enough to set me obstinate against him; but I constrained myself to
think of Margery and Richard Jennifer, and not at all of this poor petty
miser.

"I'll sign a quitclaim in her favor, if that is what you mean," I said.
"But 'tis a mere pen-scratch for the lawyers to haggle over. As you said
a while ago, the wife will be the husband's heir-at-law, in any event."

"True; but we'd best be at it in due and proper form." He rose and
hobbled to the door and was so set upon haste that his shaking hand
played a rattling tattoo on the latch. "I--I'll go and have the papers
drawn, and you will sign them, Captain Ireton; I have your passed word
that you will sign them?"

"Aye; they shall be signed."

He went away at that, and Tybee entered. Much to my comfort, the
lieutenant asked no questions; so far from it, he crossed the room
without a word, flung himself into the great chair and left me to my own
communings.

These were not altogether of assurance. Though I had promised readily
enough to make my lie a truth, I saw that all was yet contingent upon my
lady's viewing of the proposal. That I could win her over I had some
hope, if only they would leave the task for me. But there was room to
fear that this poor miser father would make it all a thing of property
and so provoke her to resistance. And, notwithstanding what he
said--that she would do as she was bid--I thought I knew her temper well
enough to prophesy a hitch. For I made sure of one thing, that if she
put her will against the world, the world would never move her.

'Twas past midnight, with Tybee dozing in his chair, when next I heard
some stirrings in the corridor. As before, it was the lifting of the
wooden bar that roused my friendly guard, and when he went to parley at
the door I stood apart and turned my back.

When I looked again my company was come. At the table, busied with a
parchment that might have been a ducal title deed for size, stood
Gilbert Stair a