. She's
the daughter right enough, and--"

"There's no need to shout," chattered Pash, angrily. "I know that as
well as you do; I must act, however, as reason dictates. I'll prove the
will and see that all is right." Then, dreading Deborah's tongue he
hastily added "Good-day," and left the room. But he was not to escape so
easily. Deborah plunged after him and made scathing remarks about legal
manners all the way down to the door.

Paul and Sylvia left alone looked and smiled and fell into one another's
arms. The will had been read and the money left to the girl, thereby the
future was all right, so they thought that Pash's visit demanded no
further attention. "He'll do all that is to be done," said Paul. "I
don't see the use of keeping a dog and having to bark yourself."

"And I'm really a rich woman, Paul," said Sylvia, gladly.

"Really and truly, as I am a pauper. I think perhaps," said Beecot,
sadly, "that you might make a better match than--"

Sylvia put her pretty hand over his moustache. "I won't hear it, Paul,"
she cried vehemently, with a stamp of her foot. "How dare you? As if you
weren't all I have to love in the world now poor father--is--is de-a-d,"
and she began to weep. "I did not love him as I ought to have done,
Paul."

"My own, he would not let you love him very much."

"N-o-o," said Sylvia, drying her eyes on Paul's handkerchief, which he
produced. "I don't know why. Sometimes he was nice, and sometimes he
wasn't. I never could understand him, and you know, Paul, we didn't
treat him nicely."

"No," admitted Beecot, frankly, "but he forgave us."

"Oh, yes, poor dear, he did! He was quite nice when he said we could
marry and he would allow us money. You saw him?"

"I did. He came to the hospital. Didn't he tell you when he returned,
Sylvia?"

"I never saw him," she wept. "He never came upstairs, but went out, and
I went to bed. He left the door leading to the stairs open, too, on that
night, a thing he never did before. And then the key of the shop. Bart
used to hang it on a nail in the cellar and father would put it into his
pocket after supper. Deborah couldn't find it in his clothes, and when
she went afterwards to the cellar it was on the nail. On that night,
Paul, father did everything different to what he usually did."

"He seems to have had some mental trouble," said Paul, gently, "and I
believe it was connected with that brooch. When he spoke to me at the
hospital he said he would