“Wait till ye ’re asked, and we’ll see who first needs help, ye or I,” retorted the squire.  “Meantime understand that I’ll not have ye at Greenwood, save as a bond-servant.  My girl is promised to a man of property and respectability, and is to be had by no servant who dare not so much as let the world know who were his father and mother!”

It was now too dark to distinguish anything, so the others did not see how Brereton’s face whitened.  For a moment he was silent, then in a voice hoarsely strident he said:  “No man but you could speak thus and not pay the full penalty of his words; and since you take so low an advantage of my position, further relations with you are impossible.  Janice, choose between me and your father, for there can be but the one of us in your future life.”

“Oh, Jack,” cried the girl, imploringly, “you cannot—­if you love me, you cannot ask such a thing of me.”

“He puts it well,” asserted Mr. Meredith.  “Dost intend to obey me, child, or—­”

“Oh, dadda,” chokingly moaned Janice, “you know I have promised obedience, and never will I be undutiful, but—­”

The aide, not giving her time to complete the sentence, vehemently exclaimed, “’T is as I might have expected!  Lover good enough I am when you are in peril or want, but once saved, I am quickly taught that your favours are granted from policy and not from love.”

“’T is not so,” denied the girl, indignantly yet miserably; “I—­”

“Be still, Jan,” ordered the father.  “Think ye, sir, Lambert Meredith’s daughter would ever bring herself to wed a no-name and double-name fellow such as ye?  Here is a letter I fetched to ye from that—­Mrs. Loring:  take it and go to her.  She’s the fit company for gentry of your breed, and not my girl.”

“Beg of me forgiveness on your deathbed, or on mine, and I’ll not pardon you the words you have just spoken,” thundered the officer; “and though you stand on the gallows itself I will not stir finger to save you.  Once for all, Janice, take choice between us.”

“’T is an option you have no right to force upon me,” responded the girl, desperately.

“Ay, pay no heed to what he says, Jan.  Hand him this letter and let him go.”

“If he wants it, he must take it himself,” cried Janice.  “I’ll not touch her letter.”

The indignant loathing in the tone of the speaker was too clearly expressed not to be understood, and Brereton replied to it rather than to her words.  “I tried to speak to you of her—­to tell you the whole wretched story, when last I saw you, but I could not bring myself in such hap—­at such an hour—­the moment was too untimely—­and so I did not.  Little I suspected that you already knew the facts of my connection with her.”

“Despite the proof I myself had, I have ever refused to credit when told by others what you have just owned,” declared the girl.  “Nor will I listen to you.  From the first I scorned and hated her, and now wish never to hear of the shameful creature again.”