ble laid for breakfast, and said: "Where's Lydia
Throng?"

The elder of the three brothers replied: "There's no Lydia Throng here.
There's Lydia Bontoff, though, and in another week she'll be Lydia
something else."

"What does she say about it herself?"

"You've no call to know."

"You stole her, forced her from Throng's-her father's house."

"She wasn't Throng's; she was a Bontoff--sister of us.

"Well, she says Throng, and Throng it's got to be."

"What have you got to say about it?"

At that moment Lydia appeared at the door leading from the kitchen.

"Whatever she has to say," answered Pierre.

"Who're you talking for?"

"For her, for Throng, for the law."

"The law--by gosh, that's good! You, you darned gambler; you scum!" said
Caleb, the brother who knew him.

Pierre showed all the intelligent, resolute coolness of a trained
officer of the law. He heard a little cry behind him, and stepping
sideways, and yet not turning his back on the men, he saw Lydia.

"Pierre! Pierre!" she said in a half-frightened way, yet with a sort of
pleasure lighting up her face; and she stepped forward to him. One of
the brothers was about to pull her away, but Pierre whipped out his
commission. "Wait," he said. "That's enough. I'm for the law; I belong
to the mounted police. I have come for the girl you stole."

The elder brother snatched the paper and read. Then he laughed loud and
long. "So you've come to fetch her away," he said, "and this is how you
do it!"--he shook the paper. "Well, by--" Suddenly he stopped. "Come,"
he said, "have a drink, and don't be a dam' fool. She's our sister,--old
Throng stole her, and she's goin' to marry our partner. Here, Caleb,
fish out the brandy-wine," he added to his younger brother, who went to
a cupboard and brought the bottle.

Pierre, waving the liquor away, said quietly to the girl: "You wish
to go back to your father, to Jimmy Throng?" He then gave her Throng's
message, and added: "He sits there rocking in the big chair and
coughing--coughing! And then there's the picture on the wall upstairs
and the little ivory brush--"

She put out her hands towards him. "I hate them all here," she said. "I
never knew them. They forced me away. I have no father but Jimmy Throng.
I will not stay," she flashed out in sudden anger to the others; "I'll
kill myself and all of you before I marry that Borotte."

Pierre could hear a man tramping about upstairs. Caleb knocked on
the stove-pip