"Yes! Yes—but healthy people die in queer ways."
Deborah intervened impatiently. "I'm glad you wish to make my lily-queen happy, sir," said she, nodding, "but change your mind you may if Mr. Beecot don't fall in."
"Fall in?" queried Aaron.
"With this arrangements—what is they?"
Aaron looked undecided, then spoke impulsively, walking towards the door as he did so. "Let Mr. Beecot give me that opal serpent," he said, "and he shall have Sylvia and enough to live on."
"But, father, it is lost," cried Sylvia, in dismay.
She spoke to the empty air. Norman had hastily passed through the door and was descending the stairs quicker than usual. Sylvia, in her eagerness to explain, would have followed, but Deborah drew her back with rough gentleness. "Let him go, lily-queen," she said; "let sleeping dogs lie if you love me."
"Deborah, what do you mean?" asked Sylvia, breathlessly.
"I don't mean anything that have a meaning," said Miss Junk, enigmatically, "but your par's willing to sell you for that dratted brooch, whatever he wants it for. And you to be put against a brooch my honey-pot. I'm biling—yes, biling hard," and Deborah snorted in proof of the extremity of her rage.
"Never mind, Debby. Father consents that I shall marry Paul, and will give us enough to live on. Then Paul will write great books, and his father will ask him home again. Oh—oh!" Sylvia danced round the room gaily, "how happy I am."