The Definite Object. Jeffery Farnol

must!" he answered softly, nodding so sleepily that she almost expected him to yawn. "You really can't go out again to-night, you know," he added. Hermione's blue eyes flashed, her delicate brows knit themselves, and Mr. Ravenslee saw that she was taller than he had thought.

      "You mean you will—try to stop me?" she demanded.

      "No, I mean that I—will stop you!"

      "But you'd never dare—"

      "I would dare even your anger in so good a cause. Ah, please don't be angry with me, Miss Hermione, because—" and here his sleepy voice grew positively slumberous, "you shall not go out into the streets again to-night!"

      "Ah, an' that's right too, Mr. Geoffrey!" cried Mrs. Trapes. "Hermy needs some one strong enough to master her now an' then, she is that wilful, she is so!"

      But now all at once, as he watched, Hermione's eyes filled with great, slow-gathering tears, her firm-set lips grew soft and quivered pitifully, and she sank down in the easy-chair, her golden head bowed upon the green and yellow tablecloth. The battered hat tumbled to the floor, and striding forward, he had bent and caught one of her listless hands all in a moment, and thereafter, though it struggled feebly once, he held it closely prisoned in his own.

      "Oh, don't!" he pleaded, his words coming quick and eager, "don't do that! Do you think I can't see that you're all overwrought? How can I let you go tramping out there in the streets again? You couldn't go—you mustn't go! Stay here with good Mrs. Trapes, I beg of you, and I swear I'll bring Arthur to you! Only you must promise me to wait here and be patient, however long I am—you must promise, Hermione!"