patience fast. He believed firmness was
the best method of managing her, after all. He rose to his feet.

"I don't want to upset you, Faith, but we have had enough nonsense. The
twins are going to school next week, and you are leaving this house and
coming to live with me. I have arranged everything."

She wrung her hands.

"I will never live with you. I hate you. Mother hated you! You killed my
father--you ruined his life."

She was only repeating parrot-like what she had always been told of the
"bad man"; of the true facts of the story she knew nothing.

The Beggar Man turned very pale.

"I have heard something of this from your friend Peg," he said grimly.
"Possibly it _is_ true that through some business transaction I got the
better of your father. But anyway it must have been years ago, and I
never knew him personally. If they say all is fair in love and war, it's
fair in business, too. He would have got the better of me if he had been
able to do so, no doubt. Anyway, I mean to thrash the matter to the
bottom, and let you know the exact truth, even if it goes against me to
tell you. I may not be proud of everything that has happened in my life,
but I'm not going to lie about it anyway.... Faith, stop crying!" His
voice was harsh now, and Faith's tears dried as if by magic.

She looked so forlorn, so very young, and a sudden revulsion of feeling
swept through the man's heart. He was already bitterly disappointed with
his marriage. He had had such wonderful schemes for moulding his wife
to his own ideas, and now he knew that he had been a fool to ever hope
anything from such a gamble! But he was a fighter, and he had no
intention of acknowledging defeat. He held out his hand to her.

"Come, Faith, be friends with me! You used to like me, you know," he
added, with a faint smile. "And it's less than a month ago. A short
time, surely."

She clasped her hands tightly in her lap, and her pretty voice sounded
like steel when she spoke.

"I didn't know then that you were Ralph Scammel!--I didn't know
then--that you killed my father."

It was a piteous exaggeration of the truth, and Forrester flushed to the
roots of his hair, but he kept his temper admirably. He even managed a
laugh as he turned to the door.

"Well, I'm not arguing with you now about it," he said hardily. "I'll
say good-night."

When he had gone, Peg came in to Faith, and the younger girl broke down
once more into pitiable weeping.

"He say