The gravely sceptical smile on Emilia's face changed to a blank pallor.

"Then, you make him, sir--you?"

"He'll be a beggar, if he don't."

"You will keep him without money?"

Mr. Pole felt that he gazed on strange deeps in that girl's face. Her
voice had the wire-like hum of a rising wind. There was no menace in her
eyes: the lashes of them drooped almost tenderly, and the lips were but
softly closed. The heaving of the bosom, though weighty, was regular:
the hands hung straight down, and were open. She looked harmless; but
his physical apprehensiveness was sharpened by his nervous condition, and
he read power in her: the capacity to concentrate all animal and mental
vigour into one feeling--this being the power of the soul.

So she stood, breathing quietly, steadily eyeing him.

"No, no;" went on Mr. Pole. "Come, come. We'll sit down, and see, and
talk--see what can be done. You know I always meant kindly by you."

"Oh, yes!" Emilia musically murmured, and it cost her nothing to smile
again.

"Now, tell me how this began." Mr. Pole settled himself comfortably to
listen, all irritation having apparently left him, under the influence of
the dominant nature. "You need not be ashamed to talk it over to me."

"I am not ashamed," Emilia led off, and told her tale simply, with here