ood--she felt it to be
utterly impossible that she should marry him until he knew the truth;
and the truth--that she was Westwood's daughter--would, she felt sure,
part him from her for ever.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Early in the sweet June morning--sweet and fair although it brooded over
London, the smokiest city in the world--Cynthia was again walking in
Kensington Gardens. She had not gone far before she met her father, with
whom she had made an appointment for that hour.

"Well, Cynthia, my girl?"

"I have come, you see, father."

"I hardly thought you'd get here so soon after your party-going last
night," said her father. "You look pretty tired too. Well, my girl, I
told you I'd been staying down at Beechfield."

"Yes; and I was terribly anxious about you all the time, father. It was
such a daring thing to do! Suppose any one had suspected you?"

"Not much fear o' that!" said Westwood, a little scornfully. "Why, look
at me! Am I like the man I was at Beechfield ten years ago? I was a sort
of outcast then, having sunk from bad to worse through my despair when I
lost your mother, Cynthia; but, now that I have a new coat on my back
and money in my pocket, all through my luck in the States, not to speak
of this white hair, which I shall keep to until I'm back in the West
again, I'm a different man, and nobody ever thinks of suspecting me."

He was different, Cynthia noticed, in more than one respect--he was far
less silent and morose than he used to be. Life in the West had brought
out some unexpected reserves of decision and readiness of speech, and
his success--his luck, as he sometimes called it--had cheered his
spirits. He was defiant and he was often bitter still; but he was no
longer downcast.

"They'd not have much chance if they did suspect me," he said, after a
little pause; "if they thought that they'd got me again, they'd find
their mistake. I'd put a bullet through my head afore ever I went back
to Portland!"

"Oh, father, don't speak so!"

"Come, Cynthy, don't you pretend! You're a brave girl and a spirited
one. Now wouldn't you yourself sooner die than be cooped up in a gaol,
or set to work in a quarry with an armed warder watching you all day
long--wouldn't you put an end to it, I ask you--being a brave girl and
not a namby-pamby creature as hasn't got a will of her own, and don't
know better than to stay where she's put--eh, Cynthia?"

"Don't speak quite so loud, father dear," said Cynthi