she responded to his
salutation. She had feared a quiver would run through the words.

"I believe an apology is due you," resumed Marston, "before I inquire
the cause of this visit. I'm glad to see you, you know."

He paused a moment to gloat openly over her face and figure. The girl
felt herself grow colder before his bold gaze, but said nothing.

"That da--that dog was called to his breakfast, and took a fancy to my
dinner, which was on a shelf near. Of course I tried to get it away from
him, and in the chase we ran into you. But I haven't welcomed you to my
home yet; shake hands with me!"

He advanced to her side and held up his hand.

For a moment a mist swam before Julia's eyes, and she hesitated. All the
hateful story which her father had told her rose up in detail, and she
felt that to touch this monster would blast her. But she had come to sue
for a favour--really to demand justice, but it meant the same thing. She
could not afford to affront him, or anger him, if she could help it. She
bent and placed her gloved hand in his, silently. He held it in a firm,
fierce grasp until she forcibly withdrew it. His little, pig-like eyes
were flaming with a different emotion from that which had possessed them
a moment ago.

"Come--get down," he said, hoarsely. "You have come to call and I want
to receive you in my house. I will get a boy to hold your horse."

He looked at her with hungry cunning as he spoke, and the proud spirit
of the Dudleys within her rebelled.

"I shall not dismount," she said, backing The Prince a few steps ere she
was aware of what she was doing. "My business here can be told briefly,
and I haven't time to stay."

She tried to choose her words carefully, for there was so much involved.

"Ah!" he snarled; "so you refuse my hospitality!"

"I do not mean it that way, believe me. But I must hurry, and we can
talk as well here."

He came a few paces nearer, covering the distance she had placed between
them when she unconsciously backed The Prince.

"I don't like this!" he exclaimed, half rudely, looking at her with bold
deviltry in his heavy face. "We are too far apart; friends should be
nearer when they talk."

He bared his protruding teeth in a horrible grin as he said this. His
shrewd if debased intellect had told him from the first that nothing but
the direst need would bring a Dudley to his door on any sort of mission
whatsoever. And as he realized that both girl and horse were for th