preciseness of diction which he seemed never able to
forget, even though deeply moved.

"More than ever, now that Sofia is restored to me, I could wish the past
other than what it was, that she might start life with a handicap less
cruel of inherited tendencies. But when I reflect that both her parents--"

"Please!" Sofia begged, piteous. "Oh, please!"

"I am sorry, my dear." Victor closed tender hands over those which the girl
had lifted in appeal. "It is for your own good only I give myself this pain
of warning you against your worst enemy, I mean yourself, the self that is
so strange a compound of hereditary weaknesses.... Please remember always
that, no matter what may happen, however far you may be led into
transgression of the social codes, I shall never reproach you, on the
contrary, you may count implicitly on my sympathetic understanding. Never
forget, I, too, have known, have suffered and fought myself--and in the end
won at a cost I am not yet finished paying, nor will be, I fear, this side
my grave."

He sighed from his heart, and bowing a stricken head, seemed to lose
himself in disconsolate reverie--but not so far as to suffer the
interruption which Sofia made to offer and which he stayed with an eloquent
hand.

"You do not understand? But naturally. Let me explain. No: there is no
reason why Sybil--Mrs. Waring--should not hear. She is a dear friend of
long years, she understands."

With a quiet murmur--"Oh, quite!"--Mrs. Waring ran an affectionate arm
round Sofia's shoulders and gently held the girl to her.

"When I determined to forsake the bad old ways," Victor pursued--"this you
must know, my dear--I had friends--of a sort--who resented my defection,
set themselves against my will and, when they found they could not swerve
me from my purpose, became my enemies. That was long ago, but to this day
some of them persist in their enmity--I have to be constantly on my guard."

"You mean there is danger?" Sofia asked in quick anxiety. "Your life--?"

"Always," Victor assented, gravely. With a shrug he added: "It is nothing;
for myself, I am used to it, I do not greatly care. But for you--that is
another matter altogether. I have a great fear for you, my child. That,
indeed, is why I never tried to find you till yesterday--believing, as I
mistakenly did, you were in good hands, well cared for, happy--lest my
enemies seek to strike at me through you. But when I saw that unfortunate
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