that's hard, after being reared a gentleman; but to be
an exile, banned, disgraced, afraid to show my face in broad daylight
amidst my fellowmen, in dread every hour that the sword may fall! I
would almost as soon be dead as continue to live it."

"Well, you have got nobody to grumble at; you brought it upon yourself,"
philosophically returned Miss Carlyle, as she opened the door to admit
her brother. "You would go hunting after that brazen hussy, Afy, you
know, in defiance of all that could be said to you."

"That would not have brought it upon me," said Richard. "It was through
that fiend's having killed Hallijohn; that was what brought the ban upon
me."

"It's a most extraordinary thing, if anybody else _did_ kill him, that
the facts can't be brought to light," retorted Miss Carlyle. "Here you
tell a cock-and-bull story of some man's having done it, some Thorn; but
nobody ever saw or heard of him, at the time or since. It looks like a
made-up story, Mr. Dick, to whiten yourself."

"Made up!" panted Richard, in agitation, for it seemed cruel to him,
especially in his present frame of mind, to have a doubt cast upon his
tale. "It is Thorn who is setting the officers upon me. I have seen him
three or four times within the last fortnight."

"And why did you not turn the tables, and set the officers upon him?"
demanded Miss Carlyle.

"Because it would lead to no good. Where's the proof, save my bare word,
that he committed the murder?"

Miss Carlyle rubbed her nose. "Dick Hare," said she.

"Well?"

"You know you always were the greatest natural idiot that ever was let
loose out of leading strings."

"I know I always was told so."

"And it's what you always will be. If I were accused of committing a
crime, which I knew another had committed and not myself, should I
be such an idiot as not to give that other into custody if I got the
chance? If you were not in such a cold, shivery, shaky state, I would
treat you to a bit of my mind, you may rely upon that."

"He was in league with Afy, at that period," pursued Richard; "a
deceitful, bad man; and he carries it in his countenance. And he must be
in league with her still, if she asserts that he was in her company at
the moment the murder was committed. Mr. Carlyle says she does; that she
told him so the other day, when she was here. He never was; and it was
he, and no other, who did the murder."

"Yes," burst forth Miss Carlyle, for the topic was sure to agitat