ur feelings are. But what you so greatly dread will never happen.
Disgrace will be spared you and yours, because your father has not the
power to interfere with the colt. Possibly before the day is out Copley
will be as helpless as a child. You look surprised and I don't wonder. I
am going to tell you something in the nature of a romance. To begin
with, the Blenheim colt belongs to me."

May was too surprised to speak. She sat on the arm of Fielden's chair.
She did not seem to notice that his arm was around her, and that her
head was very near his shoulder. She did not seem to care about anything
now that Fielden was with her, and there was a link between the past and
the present. It was a fascinating story which Fielden had to tell, much
more remarkable than anything May had ever read of between the covers of
a sporting novel. When the recital was finished she wiped the tears from
her eyes, and a happy smile broke over her face. On the spur of the
moment she bent down and kissed her companion.

"Did any one ever hear the like of it?" she exclaimed. "It seems almost
too good to be true. It is more like a fairy story than literal fact.
But I am glad for your sake, for my sake, and for my father's sake. For
he is my father, and it is possible that in his position I might have
acted in a like heedless and foolish way. It would have been a terrible
blow for him to leave Haredale Park. It is only since I have been in
lodgings that I have come to realize what it means to have no home, what
it was to turn out of such a dear old place as Haredale. But, Harry, we
don't appear to be out of the wood yet. It will be a bitter
disappointment to Mr. Copley and his colleague to be deprived of their
chance of swindling the public. I am sure Mr. Copley will be none the
less vindictive against my father, because this was no fault of his. I
am afraid we shall have to leave Haredale in any case."

"I don't think so," Fielden said. "Before long Copley will be powerless.
We shall be able to hang on till Derby Day; then the gallant colt will
win fortunes for all of us, and I shall be a rich man again. I shall be
able to restore the old house and buy back the land, and then I shall
have a home fit to ask my wife to. After that we shall be happy, only
there won't be any more betting and gambling, because I have learnt my
lesson, and it will be all the more effectual and lasting because it has
been bitter. Meanwhile nobody knows anything about y