ir, that you tried to kill Mr
Mark Frayne because he was going to tell on you about some money
troubles. It ain't true, is it, sir?"

"True!" cried Richard, flushing indignantly.

"I knowed it wasn't!" said Jerry, triumphantly. "You couldn't ha' done
such a thing, S'Richard; but I wouldn't ha' believed as you could hit so
hard."

"Go now, please."

"Yes, sir, just a-going; but don't you take on, sir. P'raps he'll get
better; but, if he don't--well, sir, he's your cousin, but--"

"That will do; now go."

Jerry gave his mouth a slap, and hurried from the room.

CHAPTER SIX.

DOWN IN THE DEPTHS.

Half-mad with despair and misery, one thought constantly returned with
terrible persistence to Richard Frayne as he tramped up and down his
prison--for so it now seemed, though neither locks nor bars stayed his
way to freedom. The pleasant, handsomely-furnished room was the same as
it had been only a few hours before, with musical instruments and
treasured hobbies that he had collected together; and yet not the same,
for it was the cell in which he was confined by the order of the man
whose word had always been to him as a law, and in which he felt as
firmly shut in as if he had given his parole of honour not to leave it
until told to descend.

The thirst for news was again rising. Mark, they had informed him, was
lying insensible, slowly sinking into eternity, and he could not go to
his side, fall upon his knees, and tell him that he would sooner have
suffered death than this should have happened. And there, crushing him
down, as his eyes were constantly turned upon that helmet, while he
tramped the room or sank upon one of the chairs, was the thought, with
its maddening persistency, that it was better that his parents had not
lived to see their son's position--the shame and despair which were now
his lot--always that thought; for he recalled the days of sorrow, a
couple of years back, when the gallant officer, whose name had been a
power in India, was snatched away, and the loving wife and mother
followed him within a month.

Light-hearted, of an affectionate nature, and always on the warmest
terms of intimacy with his fellow-pupils, his position now seemed to him
doubly hard in his loneliness, for not one had come near him to take him
by the hand. The words raved out in the quarrel had run through them
and hardened all against him. They could have sympathised with him in
the terrible result of the enc