ng people
winced as they crouched in the recess of the window. "You foul-mouthed
slanderer, I'll indict you for defamation, and give you twelve months in
one of her Majesty's jails."

"No, you won't," roared the Colonel; "I know the law. My comments on
your character are not written and signed like your knavish lease; it's a
privileged communication--VILLAIN! there are no witnesses--SHARPER! By
Jupiter, there are, though!"

He had caught sight of a male figure just visible at the side of
the window.

"Who is it? MY SON!"

"My DAUGHTER!" cried Bartley, catching sight of Mary.

"Come out, sir," said the Colonel, no longer loudly, but trembling
with emotion.

"Come here, Mary," said Bartley, sternly.

At this moment who should open the back door of the office but
William Hope!

"Walter," said the Colonel, with the quiet sternness more formidable than
all his bluster, "have not I forbidden you to court this man's daughter?"

Said Bartley to Mary: "Haven't I forbidden you to speak to this
ruffian's son?"

Then, being a cad who had lost his temper, he took the girl by the wrist
and gave her a rough pull across him that sent her effectually away from
Walter. She sank into the Colonel's seat, and burst out crying with
shame, pain, and fright.

"Brute!" said the Colonel. But the thing was not to end there. Hope
strode in amongst them, with a pale cheek and a lowering brow as black as
thunder; his first words were, "Do YOU CALL YOURSELF A FATHER?" Not one
of them had ever seen Hope like that, and they all stood amazed, and
wondered what would come next.

CHAPTER XVI.

REMINISCENCES.--THE FALSE ACCUSER.--THE SECRET EXPLODED.

The secret hung on a thread. Hope, after denouncing Bartley, as we have
described, was rushing across to Mary, and what he would have said or
done in the first impulse of his wrath, who can tell?

But the quick-witted Bartley took the alarm, and literally collared him.
"My good friend," said he, "you don't know the provocation. It is the
affront to her that has made me forget myself. Affronts to myself from
the same quarter I have borne with patience. But now this insolent man
has forbidden his son to court her, and that to her face; as if we wanted
his son or him. Haven't I forbidden the connection?"

"We are agreed for once," said the Colonel, and carried his son off
bodily, sore against his will.

"Yes," shrieked Bartley after him; "only _I_ did it like a gentleman, and
did