nd here."

Privately Janetta thought that this would be no drawback, but she did
not care to make objections, so turned once more and walked on silently.

"I want to speak to you," said the man, presently, with something of a
shamefaced air, "about the little scene you came upon this
afternoon----"

"Yes," said Janetta. She did not know how contemptuously her lips curled
as she said the word.

"You came at an unfortunate moment," he went on, awkwardly enough. "I
was about to interpose; I should not have allowed Jack Strangways to go
too far. Of course you thought that I did not care."

"Yes," said Janetta, straightforwardly. Wyvis bit his lip.

"I am not quite so thoughtless of my son's welfare," he said, in a
firmer tone. "There was enough in that glass to madden a child--almost
to kill him. You don't suppose I would have let him take that?"

"I don't know. You were offering no objection to it when I came in."

"Do you doubt my word?" said Wyvis, fiercely.

"No. I believe you, if you mean really to say that you were not going to
allow your little boy to drink what Mr. Strangways offered him."

"I do mean to say it"--in a tone of hot anger.

Janetta was silent.

"Have you nothing to say, Miss Colwyn?"

"I have no right to express any opinion, Mr. Brand."

"But I wish for it!"

"I do not see why you should wish for it," said Janetta, coldly,
"especially when it may not be very agreeable to you to hear."

"Will you kindly tell me what you mean?" The words were civil, but the
tone was imperious in the extreme.

"I mean that whether you were going to make Julian drink that poisonous
stuff or not, you were inflicting a horrible torture upon him," said
Janetta, as hotly as Wyvis himself could have spoken. "And I cannot
understand how you could allow your own child to be treated in that
cruel way. I call it wicked to make a child suffer."

Had she looked at her companion, she would have seen that his face had
grown a little whiter than usual, and that he had the pinched look about
his nostrils which--as his mother would have known--betokened rage. But
she did not look; and, although he paused for a moment before replying,
his voice was quite calm when he spoke again.

"Torture? Suffering? These are very strong words when applied to a
little harmless teasing."

"I do not call it harmless teasing when you are trying to make a child
break a promise that he holds sacred."

"A very foolish promise!"

"I