holding out the miniature, "I've decided you must take this."

Charles smiled pleasantly. "Then 't is your duty to make
me, Miss Meredith," he replied, folding his arms.

"Won't you please take it?" begged Janice, not a little non-plussed
by her position, and that Evatt should be a witness of
it. "We know it belongs to you, and 't is too valuable for
me to--"

"How know you that?" questioned the man, still smiling
pleasantly.

"Because 't was with your clothes when you went in swimming,"
said Janice, frankly.

"Miss Meredith," replied Charles, "the word of a poor devil
of a bond-servant can have little value, but I swear to you that
that never belonged to me, and that I therefore have no right
to it. If it gives you any pleasure, keep it."

"That is as good as saying ye stole it," asserted Evatt.

Charles smiled contemptuously. "'All are not thieves
whom dogs bark at,'" he retorted. "Nor are all of us sneaks
and spies," he added, as, turning, he led away the horse toward
the stable.

"Yon fellow does n't stickle at calling ye names, Miss Meredith,"
said Evatt.