set too much lately to suppose otherwise--and this
is the consequence."

"If it is, Hamilton," said Louis, scarcely able to speak for the warmth
of his feelings, "you might have prevented it if you would. You wouldn't
forgive my speaking carelessly once--and no one that I cared for would
notice me. He was almost the only one who would speak to me. If you had
said one word, I shouldn't have been so bad. I thought you didn't care
about me, and I didn't mean to stay where I wasn't wanted."

The expression of Hamilton's face was not easy, and he drowned the end
of Louis' speech by knocking all the fire-irons down with a movement of
his poised foot.

"It was a likely way to be wanted, I imagine," said Jones, "to go on
as you have been doing. Besides, who is to know what's likely to be
safe with such a tell-tale--a traitor--in the camp as you are?"

"If there hadn't been another as great," said Louis, "you would never
have known of me; but you bear with him because you can't turn him out."

"Pray, sir!" exclaimed Norman, "whom do you mean?"

Louis felt sorry he had allowed himself to say so much; but he stood
unshrinkingly before his interrogator, and replied:

"I mean you, Norman: you know if you hadn't told tales of me this
wouldn't have happened."

What vengeance Louis might have drawn on himself by this ill-judged
speech we cannot tell, had not Hamilton stepped forward and interposed.

There was a grim ghost of a smile on his face as he put his arm in
front of Louis.

"Fair play, Norman," he said; "I won't have him touched here.
You can go now."

As Louis left the room, Hamilton resumed his former attitude,
and seemed lost in a revery of an unpleasant description, while
a discussion on Louis' conduct was noisily carried on around him:
some declaring that Louis had done the deed from malicious motives,
others believing that it was merely a foolish joke of which he had
not calculated the consequences, and a third party attributing it
entirely to Casson's influence.

"Vexed as I am to find Louis has been so foolish," said Reginald,
"I am glad, Frank, that you will now be cleared. Hamilton, I am sure
you believe that Louis only intended a joke?"

Hamilton nodded gravely.

"I suppose you'll clear up the matter instanter, Hamilton?"
said Jones.

"_Clear up the matter?_ How! is it not clear enough already?"
said Hamilton, almost fiercely.

"Clear to us, but not to the doctor," said Meredith.

"It's as clea