e her,
"that Jezebel of brass did presume to come here! She chose her time
well, and may thank her lucky stars I was not at home. Archibald, he's
a fool too, quite as bad a you are, Dick Hare, in some things--actually
suffered her to lodge here for two days! A vain, ill-conducted hussy,
given to nothing but finery and folly!"

"Afy said that she knew nothing of Thorn's movements now, Richard, and
had not for some time," interposed Mr. Carlyle, allowing his sister's
compliments to pass in silence. "She heard a rumor, she thought, that he
had gone abroad with his regiment."

"So much the better for her, if she does know nothing of him, sir," was
Richard's comment. "I can answer for it that he is not abroad, but in
England."

"And where are you going to lodge to-night?" abruptly spoke Miss
Carlyle, confronting Richard.

"I don't know," was the broken-spirited answer, sighed forth. "If I lay
myself down in a snowdrift, and am found frozen in the morning, it won't
be of much moment."

"Was that what you thought of doing?" returned Miss Carlyle.

"No," he mildly said. "What I thought of doing was to ask Mr. Carlyle
for the loan of a few shillings, and then I can get a bed. I know a
place where I shall be in safety, two or three miles from here."

"Richard, I would not turn a dog out to go two or three miles on such a
night as this," impulsively uttered Mr. Carlyle. "You must stop here."

"Indeed I don't see how he is to get up to a bedroom, or how a room is
to be made ready for him, for the matter of that, without betraying his
presence to the servants," snapped Miss Carlyle. And poor Richard laid
his aching head upon his hands.

But now Miss Carlyle's manner was more in fault than her heart. Will it
be believed that, before speaking the above ungracious words, before Mr.
Carlyle had touched upon the subject, she had been casting about in
her busy mind for the best plan of keeping Richard--how it could be
accomplished.

"One thing is certain," she resumed, "that it will be impossible for you
to sleep here without its being known to Joyce. And I suppose you and
Joyce are upon the friendly terms of drawing daggers, for she believes
you were the murderer of her father."

"Let me disabuse her," interrupted Richard, his pale lips working as he
started up. "Allow me to see her and convince her, Mr. Carlyle. Why did
you not tell Joyce better?"

"There's that small room at the back of mine," said Miss Carlyle,
returni