Roger followed the young man, and said, “You have just parted from Miss Belle Jocelyn.”

“Well, that’s my affair.”

“You will find yourself so greatly mistaken that you had better answer my questions honestly.  What are your intentions toward her?  I have the right to ask.”

“None of your business.”

“Look here, young man, she has acknowledged me as her brother, and as a brother I feel toward her.  I’ve only a few plain words to say.  If your intentions are honorable I’ll not interfere, although I know all about you, and you are not my style of man by any means.  If your intentions are not honorable, and you do not cease your attentions, I’ll break every bone in your body—­I swear it by the God who made me.”

“Go to the devil!” muttered the fellow.

“No, sir, nor shall I permit you to take one dear to me to the devil, but I pledge my word to send you straight to him if you harm Belle Jocelyn.  Here, stop and look me in the eyes under this lamp.  You kissed her twice to-night.  Do you intend to make her your wife?”

There was no answer, but the sullen, half-frightened face was an unmistakable response.  “I understand you now,” said Roger savagely, taking the fellow by the throat, “and I’ll send you swiftly to perdition if you don’t promise to let that girl alone,” and his gleaming eyes and iron grasp awed the incipient roue so completely that he quavered out: 

“Oh, let go.  If you feel the girl is your property, I’ll let her alone.”

Roger gave him a wrathful push which precipitated his limp form into the gutter, and growled as he walked of, “If you value your life, keep your promise.”

An evening or two later Roger said to Belle, whom he had taken out for a stroll, “I kept my word—­I cowhided that fellow Bissel, who played such a dastardly part toward your sister.  Of course I did not want to get myself into trouble, or give him any power over me, so I found out his haunts and followed him.  One night, as he was returning rather late from a drinking saloon, I spoiled his good looks with a dozen savage cuts.  He was too confused to see who it was in the dark, and to mislead him more thoroughly I said, with the last blow, ’Take that for lying and causing a poor girl to be sent to prison.’  He thinks, no doubt, that some friend of the thief was the one who punished him.  What’s more, he won’t forget the lashing I gave him till his dying day, and if I mistake not his smooth face will long bear my marks.”

Belle gave but a languid approval, for she had missed her lover for the last two evenings.  “Belle,” he continued, gravely but gently, “I was tempted to choke the life out of a fellow the other night, and it was the life of one who kissed you twice.”

She dropped her hand from his arm, but he replaced it and held it tightly as he resumed, “I’m no make-believe brother, you know.  I’m just such a brother as I would be if I had been born with you on a Southern plantation.  Though the young man was not to my mind, I told him that if his intentions were honorable I would not interfere, but I soon learned that he was an out-and-out scoundrel, and I said words to him that will make him shun you as he would death.  Belle, I would kill him as I used to club rattlesnakes in the country, if he harmed a hair of your head, and he knows it.”