“She?  No,” says the professor again, more quickly this time.  “It is only this—­she doesn’t seem to get on with the aunt to whom her poor father sent her—­he is dead—­and I have to look out for some one else to take care of her, until she comes of age.”

“I see.  I should think you would have to hurry up a bit,” says Mr. Hardinge, taking his cigar from his lips, and letting the smoke curl upwards slowly, thoughtfully.  “Impulsive people have a trick of being impatient—­of acting for themselves——­”

"She cannot,” says the professor, with anxious haste.  “She knows nobody in town.”

“Nobody?”

“Except me, and a woman who is a friend of her aunt’s.  If she were to go to her, she would be taken back again.  Perpetua knows that.”

“Perpetua!  Is that her name?  What a peculiar one?  Perpetua——­”

“Miss Wynter,” sharply.

“Perpetua—­Miss Wynter!  Exactly so!  It sounds like—­Dorothea—­Lady Highflown!  Well, your Lady Highflown doesn’t seem to have many friends here.  What a pity you can’t send her back to Australia!”

The professor is silent.

“It would suit all sides.  I daresay the poor girl is pining for the freedom of her old home.  And, I must say, it is hard lines for you.  A girl with a temper, to be——­”

“I did not say she had a temper.”

Hardinge has risen to get himself some whisky and soda, but pauses to pat the professor affectionately on the back.

“Of course not!  Don’t I know you?  You would die first!  She might worry your life out, and still you would rise up to defend her at every corner.  You should get her a satisfactory home as son as you can—­it would ease your mind; and, after all, as she knows no one here, she is bound to behave herself until you can come to her help.”

“She would behave herself, as you call it,” says the professor angrily, “any and every where.  She is a lady.  She has been well brought up.  I am her guardian, she will do nothing without my permission!”

Won’t she!

A sound, outside the door, strikes on the ears of both men at this moment.  It is a most peculiar sound, as it were the rattle of beads against wood.

“What’s that?” says Hardinge.  “Everett” (the man in the rooms below) “is out, I know.”

“It’s coming here,” says the professor.

It is, indeed!  The door is opened in a tumultuous fashion, there is a rustle of silken skirts, and there—­there, where the gas-light falls full on her from both room and landing—­stands Perpetua!

The professor has risen to his feet.  His face is deadly white.  Mr. Hardinge has risen too.

“Perpetua!” says the professor; it would be impossible to describe his tone.

“I’ve come!” says Perpetua, advancing into the room.  “I have done with Aunt Jane for ever," casting wide her pretty naked arms, “and I have come to you!”