Doreen had risen from her humble seat on the floor and had crawled on her knees to the side of his chair, where she slid a coaxing, caressing hand under his arm and put her pretty head gently down on his shoulder.

“No, you won’t, papa dear.  You won’t do anything of the kind,” she whispered in his ear very softly, very humbly.  “You would not do anything to give pain to your old friend’s son if you could help it, and you would not do anything to hurt your own child, your little Doreen, for a hundred thousand pounds, now would you?”

“Yes, I would, if it was for her good,” replied Mr. Wedmore, in a very loud and determined voice, which was supposed to have the effect of frightening her into submission.  “And it’s all rubbish to think to get around me by calling yourself ‘little Doreen,’ when you’re a great, big, overgrown lamp-post of a girl, who can take her own part against the whole county.”

Doreen laughed, but still clung persistently to the arm which he pretended to try to release from her clutches.

“Well, I don’t know about the county, but I think I can persuade my old father into doing what I want,” she purred into his ear with gentle conviction.  “You see, papa, it isn’t as if Dudley and I were engaged.  We—­”

“Why, what else have you been but engaged ever since last Christmas?” said her father, irritably.  “Everybody has looked upon it as an engagement, and Dudley was devoted enough until a couple of months ago; but now something has gone wrong with the lad, I’m certain, and it would be much better for you both to make an end of this.”

“Why, there’s nothing to make an end of,” pleaded Doreen.  “Just ’let things slide,’ as Max says, and let Dudley come down or stay away as he likes, and the matter will come quite right one way or the other, and you will find there was really nothing for you to trouble your dear old head about, after all.”

There was really some excellence in the girl’s suggestion; and her father, after much grumbling, gave a half consent to it.  He was forced to admit to himself that there was some grounds for Dudley’s agitation on reading the paragraph concerning the disappearance of Edward Jacobs, since he had been interesting himself of late in that person’s history.  But it was the degree of the young man’s agitation which had seemed morbid.  Mr. Wedmore found it difficult to understand why a mere suggestion of the man’s disappearance—­if it were indeed the man—­should affect Dudley so deeply.  And the idea of incipient insanity in young Horne grew stronger than ever in Mr. Wedmore’s mind.

Now, Doreen was by no means so sanguine as she pretended to be.  She was one of those high-spirited, lively girls who find it easy to hide from others any troubles which may be gnawing at their heart.  Such a nature has an elasticity which enables it to throw off its cares for a time, when in the society of others, only to brood over them in hours of loneliness.