they covered. It was the new vicar, Mr. Angelo.

He smiled on Mary graciously, and asked her how Sir Charles was.

She said he was better.

Then Mr. Angelo asked, more timidly, was Lady Bassett at home.

"She is just gone out, sir."

A look of deep disappointment crossed Mr. Angelo's face. It did not
escape Mary Wells. She looked at him full, and, lowering her voice a
little, said, "She is only in the grounds with Sir Charles. She will be
at home about five o'clock."

Mr. Angelo hesitated, and then said he would call again at five. He
evidently preferred a duet to a trio. He then thanked Mary Wells with
more warmth than the occasion seemed to call for, and retired very
slowly: he had come very quickly.

Mary Wells looked after him, and asked herself wildly if she could not
make some use of him and his manifest infatuation.

But before her mind could fix on any idea, and, indeed, before the
young clergyman had taken twenty steps homeward, loud voices were heard
down the shrubbery.

These were followed by an agonized scream.

Mary Wells started up, and the young parson turned: they looked at each
other in amazement.

Then came wild and piercing cries for help--in a woman's voice.

The young clergyman cried out, _"Her_ voice! _her_ voice!" and dashed
into the shrubbery with a speed Mary Wells had never seen equaled. He
had won the 200-yard race at Oxford in his day.

The agonized screams were repeated, and Mary Wells screamed in response
as she ran toward the place.

CHAPTER XVI.

SIR CHARLES BASSETT was in high spirits this afternoon--indeed, a
little too high.

"Bella, my love," said he, "now I'll tell you why I made you give me
your signature this morning. The money has all come in for the wood,
and this very day I sent Oldfield instructions to open an account for
you with a London banker."

Lady Bassett looked at him with tears of tenderness in her eyes.
"Dearest," said she, "I have plenty of money; but the love to which I
owe this present, that is my treasure of treasures. Well, I accept it,
Charles; but don't ask me to spend it on myself; I should feel I was
robbing you."

"It is nothing to me how you spend it; I have saved it from the enemy."

Now that very enemy heard these words. He had looked from the "Heir's
Tower," and seen Sir Charles and Lady Bassett walking on their side the
wall, and the nurse carrying his heir on the other side.

He had come down to look at his child in the