t."

"And you go in disgrace. By thunder, you may well be ashamed of
yourself. Your family has lived with mine for over a hundred years under
this roof, and here I find you deep in some dark plot against me."

"No, no, sir; no, not against you!" It was a woman's voice, and Mrs.
Barrymore, paler and more horror-struck than her husband, was standing
at the door. Her bulky figure in a shawl and skirt might have been comic
were it not for the intensity of feeling upon her face.

"We have to go, Eliza. This is the end of it. You can pack our things,"
said the butler.

"Oh, John, John, have I brought you to this? It is my doing, Sir
Henry--all mine. He has done nothing except for my sake and because I
asked him."

"Speak out, then! What does it mean?"

"My unhappy brother is starving on the moor. We cannot let him perish at
our very gates. The light is a signal to him that food is ready for him,
and his light out yonder is to show the spot to which to bring it."

"Then your brother is--"

"The escaped convict, sir--Selden, the criminal."

"That's the truth, sir," said Barrymore. "I said that it was not my
secret and that I could not tell it to you. But now you have heard it,
and you will see that if there was a plot it was not against you."

This, then, was the explanation of the stealthy expeditions at night
and the light at the window. Sir Henry and I both stared at the woman in
amazement. Was it possible that this stolidly respectable person was of
the same blood as one of the most notorious criminals in the country?

"Yes, sir, my name was Selden, and he is my younger brother. We humoured
him too much when he was a lad and gave him his own way in everything
until he came to think that the world was made for his pleasure, and
that he could do what he liked in it. Then as he grew older he met
wicked companions, and the devil entered into him until he broke my
mother's heart and dragged our name in the dirt. From crime to crime
he sank lower and lower until it is only the mercy of God which has
snatched him from the scaffold; but to me, sir, he was always the little
curly-headed boy that I had nursed and played with as an elder sister
would. That was why he broke prison, sir. He knew that I was here and
that we could not refuse to help him. When he dragged himself here one
night, weary and starving, with the warders hard at his heels, what
could we do? We took him in and fed him and cared for him. Then you
retur