a voice no longer broken. "Blacken my name before that child by one word, and I will dash the next down your throat!"
Rugge rushed to the door, and keeping it ajar between Waife and himself, he then thrust in his head, hissing forth, "Fly, caitiff, fly! My revenge shall track your secret, and place you in my power. Juliet Araminta shall yet be mine!" With these awful words the Remorseless Baron cleared the stairs in two bounds, and was out of the house.
Waife smiled contemptuously. But as the street-door clanged on the form of the angry manager, the color faded from the old man's face. Exhausted by the excitement he had gone through, he sank on a chair, and with one quick gasp as for breath, fainted away.
CHAPTER XI.
Whatever the shock which the brutality of the Remorseless Baron inflicted on the nervous system of the persecuted but triumphant Bandit, it had certainly subsided by the time Vance and Lionel entered Waife's apartment, for they found grandfather and grandchild seated near the open window, at the comer of the table (on which they had made room. for their operations by the removal of the carved cocoanut, the crystal egg, and the two flower-pots), eagerly engaged, with many a silvery laugh from the lips of Sophy, in the game of dominoes.
Mr. Waife had been devoting himself, for the last hour and more, to the instruction of Sophy in the mysteries of that intellectual amusement, and such pains did he take, and so impressive were his exhortations, that his happy pupil could not help thinking to herself that this was the new art upon which Waife depended for their future livelihood. She sprang up, however, at the entrance of the visitors, her face beaming with grateful smiles; and, running to Lionel, and taking him by the hand, while she courtesied with more respect to Vance, she exclaimed, "We are free! thanks to you—thanks to you both! He is gone! Mr. Rugge is gone!"
"So I saw on passing the green; stage and all," said Vance, while Lionel kissed the child and pressed her to his side. It is astonishing how paternal he felt—how much she had crept into his heart.
