worry your life out, and still you would rise up to defend her at
every corner. You should get her a satisfactory home as son as you
can--it would ease your mind; and, after all, as she knows no one
here, she is bound to behave herself until you can come to her
help."

"She would behave herself, as you call it," says the professor
angrily, "any and every where. She is a lady. She has been well
brought up. I am her guardian, she will do nothing without _my_
permission!"

_Won't she!_

A sound, outside the door, strikes on the ears of both men at this
moment. It is a most peculiar sound, as it were the rattle of beads
against wood.

"What's that?" says Hardinge. "Everett" (the man in the rooms below)
"is out, I know."

"It's coming here," says the professor.

It is, indeed! The door is opened in a tumultuous fashion, there is
a rustle of silken skirts, and there--there, where the gas-light
falls full on her from both room and landing--stands Perpetua!

The professor has risen to his feet. His face is deadly white. Mr.
Hardinge has risen too.

"Perpetua!" says the professor; it would be impossible to describe