"I'm afraid I can't help it, sir," said Wyndham.

Mr. Paget and his son-in-law were standing together in the very comfortable private room before alluded to in the office of the former.

Wyndham was standing with his back to the mantel-piece; Valentine's lovely picture was over his head. Her eyes, which were almost dancing with life, seemed to have something mocking in them to Mr. Paget, as he encountered their gaze now. As eyes will in a picture, they followed him wherever he moved. He was restless and ill at ease, and he wished either that the picture might be removed, or that he could take up Wyndham's position with his back to it.

"I tell you," he said, in a voice that betrayed his perturbation, "that you must help it. It's a clear breaking of contract to do otherwise."

"You see," said Wyndham, with a slow smile, "you under-rated my attractions. I was not the man for your purpose after all."

"Sit down for God's sake, Wyndham. Don't stand there looking so provokingly indifferent. One would think the whole matter was nothing to you."

"I am not sure that it is much; that is, I am not at all sure that I shall not take my full meed of pleasure out of the short time allotted to me."

"Sit down, take that chair, no, not that one—that—ah, that's better. Valentine's eyes are positively uncomfortable the way they pursue me this evening. Wyndham, you must feel for me—you must see that it will be a perfectly awful thing if my—my child loses her heart to you."

"Well, Mr. Paget, you can judge for yourself how matters stand. I—I cannot quite agree with you about what you fear being a catastrophe."

"You must be mad, Wyndham—you must either be mad, or you mean to cheat me after all."

"No, I don't. I have a certain amount of honor left—not much, or I shouldn't have lent myself to this, but the rag remaining is at your service. Seriously now, I don't think you have grave cause for alarm. Valentine is affectionate, but I am not to her as you are."

"You are growing dearer to her every day. I am not blind, I have watched her face. She follows you with her eyes—when you don't eat she is anxious, when you look dismal—you have an infernally dismal face at times, Wyndham—she is puzzled. It wasn't only what I saw last night. Valentine is waking up. It was in the contract that she was not to wake up. I gave you a child for your wife. She was to remain a child when——"

"When she became my widow," Wyndham answered calmly.

"Yes. My God, it is awful to think of it. We must go in, we daren't turn back, and she may suffer, she may suffer horribly, she has a great heart—a deep heart. It is playing with edged tools to make it live."

"Can't you shorten the time of probation?" asked Wyndham.

"I wish to heaven I could, but I am powerless. Wyndham, my good friend, my son—something must be done."

"Don't call me your son," said the younger man, rising and shaking himself. "I have a father who besides you is—there, I won't name what I think of you. I have a mother—through your machinations I shall never see her face any more. Don't call me your son. You are very wise, you have the wisdom of a devil, but even you can overreach yourself. You thought you had found everything you needed, when you found me—the weak young fool, the despairing idiotic lover. Poor? Yes, cursedly poor, and with a certain sense of generosity, but nothing at all in myself to win the heart of a beautiful young girl. You should have gone down to Jewsbury-on-the-Wold for a little, before you summed up your estimate of my character, for the one thing I have always found lying at my feet is—love. Even the cats and dogs loved me—those to whom I gave nothing regarded me with affection. Alack—and alas—my wife only follows the universal example."

"But it must be stopped, Wyndham. You cannot fail to see that it must be stopped. Can you not help me—can you not devise some plan?"

Wyndham dropped his head on his hands.

"Hasten the crisis," he said. "I want the plunge over; hasten it."

There came a tap at the room door. Mr. Paget drew back the curtain which stood before it, slipped the bolts, and opened it.

"Ah, I guessed you were here!" said Valentine's gay voice; "yes, and Gerald too. This is delightful," added she, as she stepped into the room.

"What is it, Val?" asked her father. "I was busy—I was talking to your husband. I am very much occupied this afternoon. I forgot it was the day you generally called for me. No, I'm afraid I can't go with you, my pet."

Valentine was looking radiant in winter furs.

"I'll go with Gerald, then," she said. "He's not too busy."

She smiled at him.

"No, my dear, I'll go with you," said the younger man. "I don't think, sir," he added, turning round, with a desperately white but smiling face, "that we can advance business much by prolonging this interview, and if you have no objection, I should like to take a drive with my wife as she has called."

Valentine instinctively felt that these smoothly spoken words were meant to hide something. She glanced from the face of one man to another; then she went up to her father and linked her hand in his arm.

"Come, too, daddy," she said. "You used always to be able to make horrid business wait upon your own Valentine's pleasure."

Mr. Paget hesitated for a moment. Then he stooped and lightly kissed his daughter's blooming cheek.

"Go with your husband, dear," he said, gently. "I am really busy, and we shall meet at dinner time."

"Yes, we are to dine with you to-night—I've a most important request to make after dinner. You know what it is, Gerry. Won't father be electrified? Promise beforehand that you'll grant it, dad."

"Yes, my child, yes. Now run away both of you. I am really much occupied."

Valentine and her husband disappeared. Mr. Paget shut and locked the door behind them—he drew the velvet curtains to insure perfect privacy. Then he sank down in his easy-chair to indulge in anxious meditation.

He thought some of those hard thoughts, some of those abstruse, worrying, almost despairing thoughts, which add years to a man's life.

As he thought the mask dropped from his handsome face; he looked old and wicked.

After about a quarter-of-an-hour of these meditations, he moved slightly and touched an electric bell in the wall. His signal was answered in about a minute by a tap at the room door. He slipped the bolts again, and admitted his confidential clerk, Helps.

"Sit down, Helps. Yes, bolt the door, quite right. Now, sit down. Helps, I am worried."

"I'm sorry to observe it, sir," said Helps. "Worries is nat'ral, but not agreeable. They come to the good and they come to the bad alike; worries is like the sun—they shines upon all."

"A particularly agreeable kind of glare they make," responded Mr. Paget, testily. "Your similes are remarkable for their aptitude, Helps. Now, have the goodness to confine yourself to briefly replying to my questions. Has there been any news from India since last week?"

"Nothing fresh, sir."

"No sign of stir; no awakening of interest—of—of—suspicion?"

"Not yet, sir. It isn't to be expected, is it?"

"I suppose not. Sometimes I get impatient, Helps."

"You needn't now, sir. Your train is, so to speak, laid. Any moment you can apply the match. Any moment, Mr. Paget. Sometimes, if you'll excuse me for speaking of that same, I have a heart in my bosom that pities the victim. You shouldn't have done it from among the clergy. Mr. Paget, and him an only son, too."

"Hush, it's done. There is no help now. Helps, you are the only soul in the world who knows everything. Helps, there may be two victims."

Helps had a sallow face. It grew sickly now.

"I don't like it," he muttered. "I never did approve of meddling with the clergy—he was meant for the Church, and them is the Lord's anointed."

"Don't talk so much," thundered Mr. Paget. "I tell you there are two victims—and one of them is my child. She is falling in love with her husband. It is true—it is awful. It must be prevented. Helps, you and I have got to prevent it."

Helps sat perfectly still. His eyes were lowered; they were following the patterns of the carpet. He moved his lips softly.

"It must be prevented," said Mr. Paget. "Why do you sit like that? Will you help me, or will you not?"

Helps raised his greeny-blue eyes with great deliberation.

"I don't know that I will help you, Mr. Paget," he replied; and then he lowered them again.

"You won't help me? You don't know what you are saying, Helps. Did you understand my words? I told you that my daughter was falling in love with that scamp Wyndham."

"He ain't a scamp," replied the clerk. "He's in the conspiracy, poor lad, he's the victim of the conspiracy, but he's no scamp. Now I never liked it. I may as well own to you, Mr. Paget, that I never liked your meddling with the clergy. I said, from the first, as no good would come of it. It's my opinion, sir—" here Helps rose, and raising one thin hand shook it feebly at his employer, "it's my opinion as the Lord is agen you—agen us both for that matter. We can't do nothing if He is, you know. I had a dream last night—I didn't like the dream, it was a hominous dream. I didn't like your scheme, Mr. Paget, and I don't think I'll help you more'n I have done."

"Oh, you don't? You are a wicked old scoundrel. You think you can have things all your own way. You are a thief. You know the kind of accommodation thieves get when their follies get found out. Of course, it's inexpensive, but it's scarcely agreeable."

Helps smiled slightly.

"No one could lock me up but you, and you wouldn't dare," he replied.

These words seemed somehow or other to have a very calming effect on Mr. Paget. He did not speak for a full moment, then he said quietly—

"We won't go into painful scenes of the past, Helps. Yes; we have both committed folly, and must stand or fall together. We have both got only daughters—it is our life's work to shield them from dishonor, to guard them from pain. Suppose, Helps, suppose your Esther was in the position of my child? Suppose she was learning to love her husband, and you knew what that husband had before him, how would you feel, Helps? Put yourself in my place, and tell me how you'd feel."

"It 'ud all turn on one point," said Helps. "Whether I loved the girl or myself most. Ef I saw that the girl was going deep in love with her husband—deep, mind you—mortal deep—so I was nothing at all to her beside him, why then, maybe, I'd save the young man for her sake, and go under myself. I might do that, it 'ud depend on how much I loved."

"Nonsense; you would bring dishonor and ruin on her. How could she ever hold up her head again?"

"Maybe he'd comfort her through it. There's no saying. Love, deep love, mind you, does wonders."

Mr. Paget began to pace up and down the room.

"You are the greatest old fool I ever came across," he said. "Now, mind you, your sentiments with regard to your low-born daughter are nothing at all to me. Noblesse oblige doesn't come into the case with you as it does with my child. Dishonor shall never touch her; it would kill her. She must be guarded against it. Listen, Helps. We have talked folly and sentiment enough. Now to business. That young man must not rise in my daughter's esteem. There is such a thing—listen, Helps, come close—such a thing as blackening a man's character. You think it over—you're a crafty old dog. Go home and look at Esther, and think it over. God bless me, I'd not an idea how late it was. Here's a five pound note for your pretty girl, Helps. Now go home and think it over."