e to know?"
said Jemima, with a toss of her head. "What have they done to you?"

"You're an idiot," said Sam, "or you wouldn't talk bosh. Your dear
Reginald--"

"Well, what about him?" said Jemima, her trembling lip betraying the
inward flutter with which she heard the name.

"How would you like to know your precious Reginald was this moment in
prison?"

"What!" shrieked Jemima, with a clutch at her brother's arm.

He was glad to see there was some one he could make "sit up," and
replied, with brutal directness,--

"Yes--in prison, I tell you; charged with swindling and theft ever since
he set foot in Liverpool. There, if that's not reason enough for
turning them up, I give you up. You can tell mother so, and say I'm
down at the club, and she'd better leave supper up for me; do you hear?"

Jemima did not hear. She sat rocking herself in her chair, and sobbing
as if her heart would break. Vulgar young person as she was, she had a
heart, and, quite apart from everything else, the thought of the
calamity which had befallen the fatherless family was in itself enough
to move her deep pity; but when to that was added her own strange but
constant affection for Reginald himself, despite all his aversion to
her, it was a blow that fell heavily upon her.

She would not believe Reginald was guilty of the odious crimes Sam had
so glibly catalogued; but guilty or not guilty, he was in prison, and it
is only due to the honest, warm-hearted Jemima to say that she wished a
hundred times that wretched evening that she could be in his place.

But could nothing be done? She knew it was no use trying to extract any
more particulars from Samuel. As it was, she guessed only too truly
that he would be raging with himself for telling her so much. Her
mother could do nothing. She would probably fly with the news to Mrs
Cruden's bedside, and possibly kill her outright.

Horace! She might tell him, but she was afraid. The news would fall on
him like a thunderbolt, and she dreaded being the person to inflict the
blow. Yet he ought to knew, even if it doubled his misery and ended in
no good to Reginald. Suppose she wrote to him.

At that moment a knock came at the door, followed by the entrance of
Booms in all the gorgeousness of his evening costume. He frequently
dropped in like this, especially since Mrs Cruden's illness, to hear
how she was, and to inquire after Miss Crisp; and this was his errand
this evening.

"No