"It is that you induced the young girl May Churchill to leave her home; that you took her abroad with you, and that she is now living in London, I presume, under your protection, and is called Mrs. John. Now answer, is this true?" A dark wave of color spread to John Temple's very brows. "Who has told you this?" he said, looking steadily at his uncle. "My wife has just told me," answered the squire. "It seems she suspected this, and she saw a letter lying on your table bearing a certain address in town. She told young Henderson of this, who it seems is, or was once, a lover of this poor girl's, and she gave him the address, and this is the letter she has received this morning." The squire handed Henderson's letter to John Temple as he spoke, and John read it through and then laid it down quietly on the writing-table before him. "A truly honorable transaction altogether, I must say," he said, scornfully, fixing his gray eyes on Mrs. Temple's face. "It is true," she answered defiantly. "True or false, it was an action that I thought no gentlewoman could have been guilty of. What, to send one man to watch and spy on another man's actions; to read a letter not intended for your eyes! I could not have believed you capable of such conduct." Mrs. Temple's eyes fell before John's reproaches, and a vague feeling crept into her heart that she had left her work undone. "It is useless to talk thus," said the squire, with some dignity of manner; "my wife should not have read your letter, and I have told her so, but this does not alter the matter. You have not denied this grave charge, and if you have done this girl any wrong--a girl I have known since her childhood--you must undo that wrong as far as lies in your power. I mean you must marry her, if you have not already done so." John Temple made no answer to this; he stood there facing his uncle, and Mrs. Temple watched him fugitively. "Have you married her, or have you not?" urged the squire. "I decline to answer that question," then said John Temple. "But you said you had regretted that you had asked me to stay under your roof. You need regret it no longer, for I will leave to-day." "But your leaving will not undo the wrong that you have done. Think for a moment who this poor girl is, the daughter of one of my oldest and most respected tenants; a beautiful girl, of blameless character hitherto, who perhaps in her foolish love for you has wrecked her young life. John, you are my nephew, you are my heir, and I entreat you to act now as an honorable man should do, and make her your wife." Still John Temple made no promise. "You have read in that letter," continued the squire, pointing to Henderson's open letter lying on the writing-table, "how this young man is going to her father. Can you suppose that a respectable man like Churchill will, for a moment, sit down tamely under such an insult? No, you will have to answer to him for your conduct, as well as to me."