of another cut and run, and what baggage we can scrape together in a
jiffy, for I won't live here at Mart Tinman's mercy."

Drying her eyes to weep again, Annette said, when she could speak: "Will
nothing quiet him? I was going to bother you with all sorts of silly
questions, poor dear papa; but I see I can understand if I try. Will
nothing--Is he so very angry? Can we not do something to pacify him? He
is fond of money. He--oh, the thought of leaving England! Papa, it will
kill you; you set your whole heart on England. We could--I could--could
I not, do you not think?--step between you as a peacemaker. Mr. Tinman
is always very courteous to me."

At these words of Annette's, Van Diemen burst into a short snap of savage
laughter. "But that's far away in the background, Mr. Mart Tinman!" he
said. "You stick to your game, I know that; but you'll find me flown,
though I leave a name to stink like your common behind me. And," he
added, as a chill reminder, "that name the name of my benefactor. Poor
old Van Diemen! He thought it a safe bequest to make."

"It was; it is! We will stay; we will not be exiled," said Annette. "I
will do anything. What was the quarrel about, papa?"

"The fact is, my dear, I just wanted to show him--and take down his
pride--I'm by my Australian education a shrewder hand than his old
country. I bought the house on the beach while he was chaffering, and
then I sold it him at a rise when the town was looking up--only to make
him see. Then he burst up about something I said of Australia. I will
have the common clean. Let him live at the Crouch as my tenant if he
finds the house on the beach in danger."