did Dr. Green discuss in any way what had
happened.

"I agree with you, Porson, in doubting whether the poor boy had a hand
in this terrible business. We both know, of course, that owing to the
bad training and total absence of control when he was a child in India
his temper was, when he first came here, very hot and ungovernable.
His father often deplored the fact to me, blaming himself as being to
a great extent responsible for it, through not having had time to watch
and curb him when he was a child; but he was, as you say, an excellently
disposed boy, and your testimony to the efforts which he has made to
overcome his faults is valuable. But I cannot conceal from you, who are
a true friend of the boy's, what I should certainly tell to no one else,
namely, that I fear that his mother's evidence will be terribly against
him.

"She has always been prejudiced against him. She is a silly, selfish
woman. So far as I could judge she cared little for her first husband,
who was a thousand times too good for her; but strangely enough she
appears to have had something like a real affection for this man
Mulready, who, between ourselves, I believe, in spite of his general
popularity in the town, to have been a bad fellow. One doesn't like to
speak ill of the dead under ordinary circumstances, but his character
is an important element in the question before us. Of course among my
poorer patients I hear things of which people in general are ignorant,
and it is certain that there was no employer in this part of the country
so thoroughly and heartily detested by his men."

"I agree with you cordially," Mr. Porson said. "Unfortunately I know
from Ned's own lips that the lad hated his stepfather; but I can't bring
myself to believe that he has done this."

"I hope not," the doctor said gravely, "I am sure I hope not; but I have
been talking with his brother, who is almost heartbroken, poor boy, and
he tells me that there was a terrible scene last night. It seems that
Mulready was extremely cross and disagreeable at tea time; nothing,
however, took place at the table; but after the meal was over, and the
two boys were alone together in that little study of theirs, Ned made
some disparaging remarks about Mulready. The door, it seems, was open.
The man overheard them, and brutally assaulted the boy, and indeed
Charlie thought that he was killing him. He rushed in and fetched his
mother, who interfered, but not before Ned had been sad