Eh?
D'ye hear?
Dog my skin if I don't believe the d----d Injin's drunk." It was fortunate that at that moment Flip reappeared, and, dropping on the hearth between her father and the infuriated Lance, let her hand slip in his with a warning pressure.

The light touch momentarily recalled him to himself and her, but not until the quick-witted girl had revealed to her, in one startled wave of consciousness, the full extent of Lance's infirmity of temper.

With the instinct of awakened tenderness came a sense of responsibility, and a vague premonition of danger.

The coy blossom of her heart was scarce unfolded before it was chilled by approaching shadows.

Fearful of, she knew not what, she hesitated.
Every moment of Lance's stay was imperiled by a single word that might spring from his suppressed white lips; beyond and above the suspicions his sudden withdrawal might awaken in her father's breast, she was dimly conscious of some mysterious terror without that awaited him.