me men; indeed, even Caffyn felt a languid compunction for
what he was doing. But his only chance lay in working upon her fears;
he could not afford to be sentimental just then, and so he went on,
carefully calculating each word.

'Oh, I won't believe it,' cried Dolly, with a last despairing effort
to resist the effect his grave pity was producing; 'I can't. Harold,
you're trying to frighten me. I'm not frightened a bit. _Say_ you are
only in fun!'

But Caffyn turned away in well-feigned distress. 'Do I look as if it
was fun, Dolly?' he asked, with an effective quiver in his low voice;
he had never acted so well as this before. 'Is that this morning's
paper over there?' he asked, with a sudden recollection, as he saw the
sheet on a little round wicker table. 'Fetch it, Dolly, will you?'

'I must manage the obstinate little witch somehow,' he thought
impatiently, and turned to the police reports, where he remembered
that morning to have read the case of an unhappy postman who had
stolen stamps from the letters entrusted to him.

He found it now and read it aloud to her. 'If you don't believe me,'
he added, 'look for yourself--you can read. Do you see now--those
stamps were marked. Well, isn't _this_ one marked?'

'Oh, it is!' cried Dolly, 'marked all over! Yes, I do believe you now,
Harold. But what shall I do? I know--I'll tell papa--he won't let me
go to prison!'

'Why, papa's a lawyer--you know that,' said Caffyn; 'he has to _help_
the law--not hinder it. Whatever you do, I shouldn't advise you to
tell him, or he would be obliged to do his duty. You don't want to be
shut up for years all alone in a dark prison, do you, Dolly? And yet,
if what you've done is once found out, nothing can help you--not your
father, not your mamma--not Mabel herself--the law's too strong for
them all!'

This strange and horrible idea of an unknown power into whose clutches
she had suddenly fallen, and from which even love and home were unable
to shield her, drove the poor child almost frantic; she clung to him
convulsively, with her face white as death, terrified beyond tears.
'Harold!' she cried, seizing his hand in both hers, 'you won't let
them! I--I can't go to prison, and leave them all. I don't like the
dark. I _couldn't_ stay in it till I was grown up, and never see Mabel
or Colin or anybody. Tell me what to do--only tell me, and I'll do
it!'

Again some quite advanced scoundrels might have hesitated to cast so
fearful a