eyes in sleep all night long.
She lay through the dark hours moaning, and I tried to comfort her. Our
door was locked, and it was opened only by your messenger who brought the
good news of Tom-Tom's escape. I say good news, uncle, because his escape
has saved you from the stain of murder. You are too brave a man to do
murder, uncle."

"How dare you," said Sir George, taking his arm from Madge's waist, "how
dare you defend--"

"Now, uncle, I beg you pause and take a moment's thought," said Madge,
interrupting him. "You have never spoken unkindly to me."

"Nor will I, Madge, so long as I live. I know there is not a lie in you,
and I am sure you believe to be true all you tell me, but Dorothy has
deceived you by some adroit trick."

"If she deceived me, she is a witch," retorted Madge, laughing softly.

"That I am almost ready to believe is the case," said Sir George.
Dorothy, who was combing her hair at the mirror, laughed softly and
said:--

"My broomstick is under the bed, father."

Sir George went into Lady Crawford's room and shut the door, leaving me
with the girls.

When her father had left, Dorothy turned upon me with fire in her eyes:--

"Malcolm Vernon, if you ever lay hands upon me again as you did last
night, I will--I will scratch you. You pretended to be his friend and
mine, but for a cowardly fear of my father you came between us and you
carried me to this room by force. Then you locked the door and--and"--

"Did not Madge give you my message?" I asked, interrupting her.

"Yes, but did you not force me away from him when, through my fault, he
was almost at death's door?"

"Have your own way, Dorothy," I said. "There lives not, I hope, another
woman in the world so unreasoning and perverse as you."

She tossed her head contemptuously and continued to comb her hair.

"How, suppose you," I asked, addressing Dorothy's back, as if I were
seeking information, "how, suppose you, the Rutland people learned that
John was confined in the Haddon dungeon, and how did they come by the
keys?"

The girl turned for a moment, and a light came to her anger-clouded face
as the rainbow steals across the blackened sky.

"Malcolm, Malcolm," she cried, and she ran to me with her bare arms
outstretched.

"Did you liberate him?" she asked. "How did you get the keys?"

"I know nothing of it, Dorothy, nothing," I replied.

"Swear it, Malcolm, swear it," she said.

"I will swear to nothing," I said, unclasping