ile you use such language as you do,
Lawrence Belford."

"Who's a better right?"

"No man has a right not to be a gentleman, and as for your right, I have
decided to withdraw it."

"What do you mean?" he cried in sudden anger.

She drew her hand out of her pocket, slowly took off her engagement
ring, and said,

"That."

"Oh! We'll have none of that. You may put your ring on again."

"I shall never wear it again."

"Yes, you will."

"I shall not."

"Look here, Miss Denny. We'll have no nonsense. You are going to marry
me next week. I suppose you know that mortgage is to be foreclosed on
Monday, and you and your father will be beggars. I know how to stop all
this, and I can do it. Marry me, and go to New York with me on
Wednesday, and the mortgage will be withdrawn."

"We may find the will before that."

"Oh! You may, you may. You and your father have been searching for that
will these ten years. You haven't found it yet, and you won't."

Alma under any ordinary circumstances would have quailed before this
man. As it was, those trails of copper wire down her dress kept her
busy. She rapidly sent off through them nearly all that was said, and
her knight of the battery sat up stairs copying it off alone in his
room, and almost swearing with anger and excitement.

Suddenly the messages stopped. He listened sharply at the door. Not a
sound. The old house was as still as a grave. Several minutes passed,
and nothing came. What had happened? Had he cut the wires? Had Alma
fainted? Suddenly the sounder spoke out sharp and clear in the silent
room:

"Elmer, come!"

He seized a revolver from the bureau, and thrusting it into his pocket,
tore off the white strip of paper that had rolled out of the instrument,
and with it in his hand he went quickly down stairs. He opened the door
without knocking, and advanced into the middle of the room.

The moment he entered, Alma sprang up from her seat, pulling out the two
wires as she did so, and throwing her arm about the young man, she cried
out in an agony of fear and shame:

"Oh, Elmer, Elmer! Take me away! Take me to my father!"

He supported her with his right arm, and turned to face her assailant
with the crumbled ribbon of paper still in his hand.

"What does this mean, sir? Have you been ill treating my cousin?"

"Go to bed, boy. It's very late for school children to be up."

"Your language is insulting, sir. I repeat it. What have you said or
done to Mis