hat brute."

His face was livid, and his eyes glowed with the fierce light that we
have seen in the eyes of his elder brother. Constance saw the growing
excitement, and sought to soothe it.

"Evan, let us not anticipate," she said, gently. "All that we can do for
Sybil shall be done, but it must be with her consent. When does your
father come?"

"I don't know," sullenly; "I telegraphed him Saturday; he will come
to-day, no doubt. But he will come too late."

"Alas, yes; I regret so much that it was for my sake he was absent from
home at such a time, and Frank, too."

"Frank? bah! What could he do? What could any one do?"

She turned, and scanned his face keenly.

"Evan, you suspect, or you know something."

"I have a thought," he replied. "I hardly dare call it a suspicion. If I
could know it to be the truth," he hissed, between set, white teeth, "I
should know what to do, then."

"Don't look like that, Evan; you look wicked."

"I feel wicked," he cried, fiercely. "You can never guess how wicked.
When I think of that brute, that beast, that viper; of the power he must
hold over _her_, I am mad, crazed. But he will come back, and then--then
I will murder him, and set her free."

With his gleaming eyes, his clenched hands, his white, uplifted face, he
looked like a beautiful evil demon. Constance shuddered as she gazed,
and then her hand closed firmly upon his arm, as she said:

"Evan, listen: Do you think it would lighten Sybil's burden to hear you
rave thus? Do you want to make her lot still harder to bear? Sybil loves
you. Would it make her heart lighter to have you embroil yourself for
her sake? You know your faults. If you let this hideous idea take place
in your mind now, it will break out some day when the demon possesses
you. If Sybil Lamotte returns, and hears you utter such threats, she
will have an added torture to bear; she will have two curses instead of
one. You can not help Sybil by committing an act that would cut you off
from her forever. You have caused her heart-aches enough already. See,
now, if you can not lighten her burden in some different, better way.
But all this is superfluous, perhaps. I wonder if Sybil will come back,
at all?"

Lower and lower sank his head, as he listened, and then something that
she had said seemed to chain and hold his thoughts.

Slowly the evil light faded from his eyes, and into his face crept a
strange, fixed look. Forgetful of time, or of his companion'