ot tell it."

"Come, sir," said Sir Marmaduke angrily, "I must and will know this;
your hesitation has a cause, and it shall be known."

The boy started at the tones so unusual to his ears, and stared at the
speaker in mute astonishment.

"I am not displeased with you, Terry--at least I shall not be, if you
speak freely and openly to me. Now, then, answer my question--What
brought you about the Lodge at so late an hour?"

"I'll not tell," said the youth resolutely.

"For shame, Terry," said Sybella, in a low, soothing voice, as she drew
near him; "how can you speak thus to my father. You would not have _me_
displeased with you?"

The boy's face grew pale as death, and his lips quivered with agitation,
while his eyes, glazed with heavy tears, were turned downwards; still he
never spoke a word.

"Well, what think you of him, now?" said Sir Marmaduke in a whisper to
his daughter.

"That he is innocent--perfectly innocent," replied she, triumphantly.
"The poor fellow has his own reasons--shallow enough, doubtless--for his
silence; but they have no spot or stain of guilt about them, Let me try
if I cannot unfathom this business--I'll go down to the boat-house."

The generous girl delayed not a moment, but hastened from the room as
she spoke, leaving Sir Marmaduke and Terry silently confronting each
other. The moment of his daughter's departure, Sir Marmaduke felt
relieved from the interference her good opinion of Terry suggested, and,
at once altering his whole demeanour, he walked close up to him, and
said--

"I shall but give you one chance more, sir. Answer my question now, or
never."

"Never, then!" rejoined Terry, in a tone of open defiance.

The words, and the look by which they were accompanied, overcame the old
man's temper in a moment, and he said--

"I thought as much. I guessed how deeply gratitude had sunk in such a
heart. Away! Let me see you no more."

The boy turned his eyes from the speaker till they fell upon his own
seared and burned limb, and the hand swathed in its rude bandage. That
mute appeal was all he made, and then burst into a flood of tears. The
old man turned away to hide his own emotions, and when he looked round,
Terry was gone. The hall door lay open. He had passed out and gained the
lawn--no sight of him could be seen.

"I know it, father, I know it all now," said Sybella, as she came
running up the slope from the lake.

"It is too late, my child; he has gone--left us for