s he is sending the twins away; he says that I must go and live
with him. You wouldn't, would you, Peg? You hate him, don't you?"

Peg did not answer. She stood looking out of the window with moody eyes,
and then she said abruptly:

"I hate Scammel as Scammel, but--there's something about Nicholas
Forrester, as Nicholas Forrester----" she paused. "Faith, do you know
what I think?"

Faith shook her head. She was always tremendously influenced by Peg; she
waited with breathless eagerness now for her words.

Peg fell into her favourite pose; hands on hips, head a little awry.
"Well, I think that unless you're a little fool you'll do as he tells
you," she said.

Faith stared at her friend with incredulous eyes. She had counted on her
to the uttermost; she could not believe that at the eleventh hour Peg
would fail her like this.

"Do as he tells me!" she gasped, helplessly. "After all you have said!
Oh, what has happened to change you so! I thought you were my friend."

"You know I am," Peg said calmly. "Perhaps never more than I am now
when I tell you to go back to him. What's the good of holding out? He's
stronger than you, and the law's on his side."

The last was a phrase culled from one of her favourite novelettes, and
she thought it applied admirably. If the truth must be told she was
thoroughly enjoying herself. She considered this story of Faith's as
good as anything that had been written and printed and sold by the
thousand. Forrester was a very good type of hero, and Faith quite the
timid, shrinking heroine beloved of the novelist. As yet she had not
quite assigned a part to herself, but Peg had her head screwed on the
right way, and she had no intention of breaking her friendship with
Faith no matter what happened, or of letting her drift out of her life.

She went on in her clear, emphatic way.

"He's rich! He'll give you everything you want! He's fond of you, and
the twins love him! What more do you want? Let the past be wiped out;
that's what I say."

She went over to Faith and patted her shrinking shoulder.

"Cheer up, little 'un," she said, resorting to her usual slangy manner
of speech, which she had dropped somewhat since she had seen so much of
the Beggar Man. "It's a long lane that has no turning, you know. And
it's lucky for you all that you've got a husband. If you think you could
earn enough to keep yourself and those twins, bless 'em, you're
mistaken. Why, they'd eat your week's wages in