"Tut! If he thinks I murdered his cousin, he wouldn't feel any particular call to be kind to me, I guess. I should like to understand all about this affair, Cynthia. Come, sit down on this bench here under the trees, and tell me about it. Don't vex yourself over what I said; I was but carried away by the heat of the moment. Now are you promised to this Mr. Lepel--engaged to him, as you young folk call it?" "I don't know whether I can tell you anything, father," murmured Cynthia. "You'd better," said Westwood quietly, "because it hangs on a thread whether I ain't going to denounce Mr. Lepel as the man that killed Mr. Sydney Vane. I never thought of him before, although I did see him at the trial and knew that he'd been hanging round the place. He was her brother, sure enough--he had a motive. Well, Cynthia?" "Father, if you are thinking such terrible things of Hubert, how can I tell you anything? You know I--I love him; if you accuse him of a crime, I shall cling to him still--and love him still--and save him if I can." "At your father's expense, girl?" She writhed at the question, and twisted her fingers nervously together, but did not speak. Westwood waited for a minute or two, and then resumed--this time very bitterly. "It's always so! The lover always drives the parent out of the young folks' hearts. For this man--that you haven't known more than a few months, I suppose--you'd give up your father to worse than the gallows--to the misery of a life sentence--and be glad, maybe, to see the last of him! If it was him or me, you would save him--and perhaps you're in the right of it. I wish," said the man, turning away his face--"I wish to God that I'd never come back to England, nor seen the face of my girl again!" Cynthia had been physically incapable hitherto of stemming the flow of his words; but now, although she was trembling with excitement and sorrow and indignation, she answered her father's accusation resolutely. "You are wrong, father. I will not sacrifice you to him. But you must not expect me to sacrifice him to you either. My heart is large enough to hold you both." There was a pathos in the tone of her last few words which impressed even Westwood's not very plastic nature. He turned towards her, noting with half-unconscious anxiety the whiteness of the girl's lips, the shadow that seemed to have descended upon her eyes. He put out his rough hand and touched her daintily gloved fingers. "Don't be put out by what I say, my girl! If I speak sharp, it's because I feel deep. I won't be hard on any one you care for, I give you my word; but it'll be the best thing for you to be fair and square with me and tell me all about him. Are you going to marry him?"