as one holds a lump of sugar
before a pug-dog.

In Selwoode I can fancy how the Eagle screamed his triumph.

But Billy's face was ashen.

"Before God!" he said, between his teeth, "loving you as I do, I
wouldn't marry you now for all the wealth in the world! The money has
ruined you--ruined you, Peggy."

For a little she stared at him. By and bye, "I dare say it has," she
said, in a strangely sober tone. "I've been scolding like a fishwife.
I beg your pardon, Mr. Woods--not for what I've said, because I meant
every _word_ of it, but I beg your pardon for saying it. Don't come
with me, please."

Blindly she turned from him. Her shoulders had the droop of an old
woman's. Margaret was wearied now, weary with the weariness of death.

For a while Mr. Woods stared after the tired little figure that
trudged straight onward in the sunlight, stumbling as she went. Then a
pleached walk swallowed her, and Mr. Woods groaned.

"Oh, Peggy, Peggy!" he said, in bottomless compassion; "oh, my poor
little Peggy! How changed you are!"

Afterward Mr. Woods sank down upon the bench and buried his face in
his hands. He sat there for a long time. I don't believe he thought
of anything very clearly. His mind was a turgid chaos of misery; and
about him the birds shrilled and quavered and carolled till the air
was vibrant with their trilling. One might have thought they choired
in honour of the Eagle's triumph, in mockery of poor Billy.

Then Mr. Woods raised his head with a queer, alert look. Surely he had
heard a voice--the dearest of all voices.

"Billy!" it wailed; "oh, Billy, _Billy_!"

XXV

For at the height of this particularly mischancy posture of affairs
the meddlesome Fates had elected to dispatch Cock-eye Flinks to serve
as our _deus ex machina_. And just as in the comedy the police turn
up in the nick of time to fetch Tartuffe to prison, or in the tragedy
Friar John manages to be detained on his journey to Mantua and thus
bring about that lamentable business in the tomb of the Capulets, so
Mr. Flinks now happens inopportunely to arrive upon our lesser stage.

Faithfully to narrate how Cock-eye Flinks chanced to be at Selwoode
were a task of magnitude. That gentleman travelled very quietly; and
for the most part, he journeyed incognito under a variety of aliases
suggested partly by a fertile imagination and in part by prudential
motives. For his notions of proprietary rights were deplorably vague,
and his acquain