ord.
But Miss Brooke, dropping her book on her red flannel lap, and looking
uneasily over her shoulder at her niece's retreating figure, would not
let her go.

"Come, Lesley, don't be angry," she said. "I am so upset that I hardly
know what I am saying. Come here and kiss me, child, I did not mean to
vex you."

And Lesley came back and kissed her aunt, but in silence, for her heart
was sore within her. Was it perhaps true--or partially true--that she
had been the cause of the misery that had come upon them all? Indirectly
and partially, unintentionally and without consciousness of
wrong-doing--and yet she could not altogether acquit herself of blame.
Had she been more reserved, more guarded in her behavior, Oliver Trent
would never have fallen in love with her. Would this have mended
matters? If, as she gathered, the sole reason of her father's visit to
the Trents had been to assure himself of the true nature of her
relations with Oliver--her cheeks burned as she put the matter in that
light, even to herself--why, then, she could not possibly divest herself
of responsibility. Of course she could not for one moment imagine that
her father had lifted his hand against Oliver; but his visit to the
house shortly before the murder gave a certain air of plausibility to
the tale: and for this Lesley felt herself to blame.

She went to her own room and lay down, but she could not sleep. There
was a hidden joy at the bottom of her heart--a joy of which she was half
ashamed. The relief of finding that Maurice was still her friend--it was
so that she phrased it to herself--was indeed very great. And there was
a strange and beautiful hope for the future, which she dared not look at
yet. For it seemed to her as if it would be a sort of treason to dream
of love and joy and hope for herself when those that she loved best--and
she herself also--were involved in one common downfall, one common
misfortune of so terrible a kind. The thought of her father--detained,
she knew not where: she had a childish vision of a felon's cell, very
different indeed from the reality of the plain but fairly comfortable
room with which Mr. Caspar Brooke had been accommodated, and she
shuddered at the thought of the days before him, of the public
examinations, of the doubt and shame and mystery in which poor Oliver
Trent's death was enwrapped. She thought of Ethel, now under the
influence of a strong narcotic, from which she would not awake until the
mor