"There's the favour you asked me for; I'll take your IOU for it presently, if it's all the same to you--as a matter of form--and to be given back to you upon my wedding-day." The bailiff nodded assent, and dropped the bag into his pocket with a sigh of relief.

And then the two men went on smoking their pipes in the usual stolid way, dropping out a few words now and then by way of social converse; and there was nothing in Mr.Whitelaw's manner to remind Ellen that she had bound herself to the awful apprenticeship of marriage without love.

But when he took his leave that night he approached her with such an evident intention of kissing her as could not be mistaken by the most inexperienced of maidens.

Poor Ellen indulged in no girlish resistance, no pretty little comedy of alarm and surprise, but surrendered her pale lips to the hateful salute with the resignation of a martyr.

It was better that she should suffer this than that her father should go to gaol.