“This is business,” he said, trying to speak lightly, “and women can’t understand it.  Gunn is—­is valuable to me, and George must go.”

“Unless you plead for him, sweet one?” said Gunn.

The girl looked at her father again, but he turned his head away and tapped on the floor with his foot.  Then in perplexity, akin to tears, she walked from the room, carefully drawing her dress aside as Gunn held the door for her.

“A fine girl,” said Gunn, his thin lips working; “a fine spirit.  ’Twill be pleasant to break it; but she does not know who is master here.”

“She is young yet,” said the other, hurriedly.

“I will soon age her if she looks like that at me again,” said Gunn.  “By —–­, I’ll turn out the whole crew into the street, and her with them, an’ I wish it.  I’ll lie in my bed warm o’ nights and think of her huddled on a doorstep.”

His voice rose and his fists clenched, but he kept his distance and watched the other warily.  The innkeeper’s face was contorted and his brow grew wet.  For one moment something peeped out of his eyes; the next he sat down in his chair again and nervously fingered his chin.

“I have but to speak,” said Gunn, regarding him with much satisfaction, “and you will hang, and your money go to the Crown.  What will become of her then, think you?”

The other laughed nervously.

“’Twould be stopping the golden eggs,” he ventured.

“Don’t think too much of that,” said Gunn, in a hard voice.  “I was never one to be baulked, as you know.”

“Come, come.  Let us be friends,” said Mullet; “the girl is young, and has had her way.”

He looked almost pleadingly at the other, and his voice trembled.  Gunn drew himself up, and regarding him with a satisfied sneer, quitted the room without a word.

Affairs at the “Golden Key” grew steadily worse and worse.  Gunn dominated the place, and his vile personality hung over it like a shadow.  Appeals to the innkeeper were in vain; his health was breaking fast, and he moodily declined to interfere.  Gunn appointed servants of his own choosing-brazen maids and foul-mouthed men.  The old patrons ceased to frequent the “Golden Key,” and its bedrooms stood empty.  The maids scarcely deigned to take an order from Joan, and the men spoke to her familiarly.  In the midst of all this the innkeeper, who had complained once or twice of vertigo, was seized with a fit.

Joan, flying to him for protection against the brutal advances of Gunn, found him lying in a heap behind the door of his small office, and in her fear called loudly for assistance.  A little knot of servants collected, and stood regarding him stupidly.  One made a brutal jest.  Gunn, pressing through the throng, turned the senseless body over with his foot, and cursing vilely, ordered them to carry it upstairs.

Until the surgeon came, Joan, kneeling by the bed, held on to the senseless hand as her only protection against the evil faces of Gunn and his proteges.  Gunn himself was taken aback, the innkeeper’s death at that time by no means suiting his aims.