"Stupid!" said the girl, a little indignant. "Why don't you let me finish my sentence." Ande was abashed at this rebuff. "I shuddered at the accident that might have been, and I want to see you justified. Now if you could tell me why you were there I could inform father, and he, being the soul of honour, would make all right." "No, I cannot tell my reason," said the youth, flushing painfully. "And not even tell me, when you know I am so interested in having you brought out from under this cloud." "If you knew you would not tell him either," said the youth, doggedly. She gazed at him quickly. Somehow in her young woman soul she seemed to read his reason. Yes, in a moment, with that keen intuition, developed earlier in woman than in man, she read through this hesitation, this confusion. She knew. "I can tell who did the deed, though," said the lad, for he thought of the information of the gipsy chief, and that now he was at perfect liberty to tell. "Who?" asked the girl, eagerly. This youth that had so bravely saved her life should be justified. Ande related the events of his rescue from the stocks and the tale of the gypsy chief. The girl listened with brightening eye and kindling cheeks. "It must be so, for how could you have gotten forth from the stocks? No one would have dared to let you out but a person like that. I know how we all wondered when Stephen Blunt came in and told my father that the stocks were empty. But why did you not tell this before?" "Because Midnight Jack told me it would not hurt them if it wasn't told for a day or so." "I shall see that you are justified. You have been shamefully treated." The squire's daughter mounted into the pony chaise, grasped the lines with her slender, gloved hands, and with a smile was gone. "Poor lad! He has been shamefully treated and he shall be justified," she thought to herself. "How foolish I was not to see before. He loves me," she said softly. "He is good looking and tall and man-like for his age." Then there was a pause in her soliloquy, unbroken save by the pony hoofs. Then she drew her brows down with a slight frown. "Pshaw!" Then the scowl left her features and she broke into a slight, nervous laugh. "Absurd!" The remainder of the drive was spent in silence, but there was heightened colour in her cheeks and a soft, pellucid light in her eyes. Old Sloan took the pony and chaise at the entrance of the great house, and Mistress Alice tripped up the steps and into the hall. The old squire was seated by the hall fire, meditating apparently, for his chin was resting on his hand and he had his eyes fixed upon the flaming coals. His daughter bent over his chair, and lightly kissed his forehead; then drawing a stool near him she seated herself, leaning her head against him and waiting for him to speak.