s letter, I maintain it to be my
own. I have already explained to you that the address is all you can
lay claim to; a recent legal decision is in my favor. It was tried last
Hilary term before Justice Whitecroff. The case was Barnes _versus_
Barnes."

"If my anger prompt me to rasher acts than my calmer reason might have
counselled," broke in Sybella, "remember, sir, it is to yourself you
owe it. At least upon one point you may rely. Whatever I decide to do
in this affair, it will not be swayed by any--the slightest--regard for
your friends or their interests. I will think of others alone,--never
once of _them_. Your smile seems to pay, 'The war between us is an
unequal one.' I know it. I am a woman, poor, friendless, unprotected;
you and yours are rich, and well thought of; and yet, with all this
odds, if I accept the conflict I do not despair of victory."

As she left the room and the door closed after her, Mr. Hankes wiped
the perspiration from his forehead, and sat down, the perfect picture of
dismay.

"What _is_ she up to?" cried he, three or four times to himself. "If
she resolves to make a public scandal of it, there's an end of us! The
shares would be down--down to nothing--in four-and-twenty hours! I'll
telegraph to Dunn at once!" said he, rising, and taking his hat. "The
mischance was his own doing; let him find the remedy himself."

With all that perfection of laconic style which practice confers, Mr.
Hankes communicated to Davenport Dunn the unhappy mistake which had
just befallen. Under the safeguard of a cipher used between them, he
expressed his deepest fears for the result, and asked for immediate
counsel and guidance.

This despatch, forwarded by telegraph, he followed by a long letter,
entering fully into all the details of the mischance, and reporting
with--it must be acknowledged--a most scrupulous accuracy an account of
the stormy scene between Miss Kellett and himself. He impressed upon his
chief that no terms which should secure her silence would be too high,
and gently insinuated that a prompt and generous offer on Dunn's part
might not impossibly decide the writer to seal his devotion to the
cause, by making the lady Mrs. Hankes. "Only remember," added he, "it
must be in cash or approved bills."

Partly to illustrate the difficulty of the negotiation he was engaged
in, partly to magnify the amount of the sacrifice he proposed to make,
he depicted Sybella in colors somewhat less flattering