and
pray, no more matrimonial solicitations: they frighten me! Gad," added
Losely, as he banged the door, "such overtures would frighten Old Nick
himself!"

Did Arabella Crane hear those last words,--or had she not heard enough?
If Losely had turned and beheld her face, would it have startled back
his trivial laugh? Possibly; but it would have caused only a momentary
uneasiness. If Alecto herself had reared over him her brow horrent with
vipers, Jasper Losely would have thought he had only to look handsome
and say coaxingly, "Alecto, my dear," and the Fury would have pawned her
head-dress to pay his washing-bill.

After all, in the face of the grim woman he had thus so wantonly
incensed, there was not so much menace as resolve. And that resolve was
yet more shown in the movement of the hands than in the aspect of the
countenance; those hands--lean, firm, nervous hands--slowly expanded,
then as slowly clenched, as if her own thought had taken substance, and
she was locking it in a clasp--tightly, tightly--never to be loosened
till the pulse was still.

CHAPTER V.

The most submissive where they love may be the most stubborn where
they do not love.--Sophy is stubborn to Mr. Rugge.--That injured man
summons to his side Mrs. Crane, imitating the policy of those
potentates who would retrieve the failures of force by the successes
of diplomacy.

Mr. Rugge has obtained his object. But now comes the question, "What
will he do with it?" Question with as many heads as the Hydra; and no
sooner does an author dispose of one head than up springs another.

Sophy has been bought and paid for: she is now, legally, Mr. Rugge's
property. But there was a wise peer who once bought Punch: Punch became
his property, and was brought in triumph to his lordship's house. To
my lord's great dismay, Punch would not talk. To Rugge's great dismay,
Sophy would not act.

Rendered up to Jasper Losely and Mrs. Crane, they had lost not an hour
in removing her from Gatesboro' and its neighbourhood. They did not,
however, go back to the village in which they had left Rugge, but
returned straight to London, and wrote to the manager to join them
there.

Sophy, once captured, seemed stupefied: she evinced no noisy passion;
she made no violent resistance. When she was told to love and obey a
father in Jasper Losely, she lifted her eyes to his face; then turned
them away, and shook her head mute and credulous. That man her fathe