"Have you been blowing her up?" asked Nash, as the Squire went back to him, and sat down on the other side the wide kitchen hearth, the fire throwing its glow upon the bricks, square and red and shining, and upon Nash Caromel's wan face, in which it was not very difficult to read death. He had put his out-of-door coat off, a long brown garment, and sat in a grey suit. Tho Squire's belief was that he wouldn't have minded getting into the fire itself; he sat there shivering and shaking, and seeming to have no warmth left in him. The room was well guarded from outer observation. The shutters were up, and there was not a chink in them. "I have," said the Squire, in answer. "Told her she did not show much regard for the honour of the family--lending herself to such a deception!" "Poor old Grizzel!" sighed Nash, with a half-smile. "She has lived upon thorns, fearing I should be discovered. As to the family honour, Todhetley, the less said about that the better." "How _could_ you do it, Caromel?" "I don't know," answered Nash, with apathy, bringing his face closer to the blaze. "I let it be done, more than did it. All I did, or could do, was just to lie still in my bed. The fever had left me weaker than a child----" "Did it really turn to typhus?" interrupted the Squire. "No, it didn't. They said so to scare people away. I was weaker than a child," continued Nash, "both in mind and body. And when I grew stronger--what was done could not be undone. Not that I seek to defend or excuse myself. Don't think that." "And, in the name of all that's marvellous, what could have put so monstrous an idea into their heads?" demanded the Squire, getting up to face the kitchen. "Well, I have always fancied that business at Sandstone Torr did," replied Nash, who had no idea of reticence now, but spoke out as freely as you please. "It had come to light, you know, not long before. Stephen Radcliffe had hidden his brother in the old tower, passing him off to the world as dead; and so, I suppose, it was thought that I could be hidden and passed off as dead." "But Stephen Radcliffe never got up a mock funeral. His tale was that Frank had died in London. You were bold people. What will Parson Holland say, when he comes to learn that he read the burial-service over a box of rubbish?" "I don't know," was the helpless reiteration of poor Nash. "The trouble and worry of it altogether, the discomforts of my position, the constant, never-ceasing dread of discovery have--have been to me what you cannot realize. But for going out of the house at night and striding about in the fresh, free air, I should have become mad. It was a _taste_ of freedom. Neither could I always confine myself to the walks in the garden; whether I would nor not, my feet would carry me beyond it and into the shaded copse." "Frightening people who met you!"