enthusiasm and was affected unpleasantly by it.

"It would be a great pity if Mr. Moxlow should be so unfortunate as to
make a fool of himself!" he commented with unusual acidity. "What else
did you hear?"

"Not much, General, only just what I've told you--that they've arrested
North, and that young Watt Harbison's been trying to get him out on
bail, but they've refused to accept bond in his case. Don't that look
like they thought the evidence was pretty strong against him--"

"Well, they, might have arrested you or me," said the general. "That
signifies nothing."

He moved off in the direction of the house, and Thompson, after a
backward glance at his retreating figure, entered the barn. Out of sight
of his foreman, the general's sturdy pace lagged. That young man had
been at Idle Hour entirely too often; he had thought so all along, and
now he was very sure of it!

"This comes of being too kind," he muttered.

Then he paused suddenly--but no, that was absurd--utterly absurd;
Elizabeth would have told him! He was certain of this, for had she not
told him all her secrets? But suppose--suppose--and again he put the
idea from him.

He found Elizabeth in the small, daintily furnished sitting-room which
Mrs. Herbert had called her "boudoir", and seated himself, none too
gently, in a fragile gilt chair which his bulk of bone and muscle
threatened to wreck. Elizabeth glanced up from _Their Wedding Journey_,
which she was reading for the second time.

"What is it, father?" she asked, for his feeling of doubt and annoyance
was plainly shown in his expressive face.

"Thompson has just come out from town--he says that John North has been
arrested for the McBride murder--"

The book slipped from Elizabeth's hand and fell to the floor; the smile
with which she had welcomed her father faded from her lips; she gazed at
him with pale face and wide eyes. The general instantly regretted that
he had spoken with such cruel abruptness.

"You don't think it is true?" she asked in a whisper.

"Thompson seemed to know what he was talking about."

"It's monstrous!" she cried.

"If North is innocent--" began the general.

"Father!" She regarded him with a look of horror and astonishment. "You
don't like him! It's that, isn't it?" she added after a moment's
silence.

"I don't like any one who gets into a scrape such as this!" replied the
general with miserable and unnecessary heat.

"But it wasn't _his_ fault--he couldn't h