The Wharf by the Docks. Florence Warden

if you're satisfied that you will meet with no more neglect in the future? That my conduct shall be in every respect what you—and the others—can desire?"

      "Not even then," replied Doreen decisively.

      "But if your father is satisfied?"

      "Then go and talk to my father."

      There was a pause and their eyes met. Dudley, who had acknowledged to himself the patience with which Doreen had put up with his recent neglect, was astonished by the resolution which he saw in her eyes.

      "What is it you want to know?" he asked, in a condescending and indulgent tone.

      "A great deal more than you will tell me," answered Doreen, promptly.

      Whereat there was another pause. Dudley took up one of the brown-paper parcels and turned it over in his hands. Perhaps it was to hide the fact that an irrepressible tremor was running through his limbs.

      If he had looked at her at that moment he would have seen in her eyes a touching look of sympathy and distress. The girl knew that something had been amiss with him—that something was amiss still. She cared for him. She wanted his confidence, or at least so much of it as would allow her to pour out upon him the tender sympathy with which her innocent heart was overflowing. And he would have none of it. He wanted to treat her like a beautiful doll, to be left in its cotton wool when his spirits were too low for playthings, and to be taken out and admired when things went better with him.

      This was what Doreen mutinously thought and what her lips were on the point of uttering, when the door was opened by Mr. Wedmore, who came into the room with a copy of the Evening Standard in his hand.

      "Look here, Horne, did you see this?" said he, as he folded the paper and handed it to Dudley. "Here's an odd thing. Of course it may be only a coincidence. But doesn't it seem to refer to the rascal who ruined your prospects—Edward Jacobs?"