"Lewis!" exclaimed Anne. "Ah! I thought you would be disappointed. It's not at all wonderful that you should think these letters could do a mighty deal of themselves, for you've no experience, you know nothing of the world; and yet, I thought you had better sense, Anne. They're not worth a rush." Anne looked at him in amazement; she would not understand his meaning. "They prove nothing--nothing in this world," said Lewis, with some impatience. "An incoherent attempt to deny a crime, which nobody could suppose he would like to acknowledge, and simply my father's belief, that what his son said was true, to support it; it is quite nonsense, Anne; nothing could be founded upon such things." "Yes; I hope you will see the folly of that romantic stuff," said Mrs. Ross; "a man sacrificing himself entirely, rather than venture to stand a trial! Depend upon it, Anne Ross, your brother Norman had his senses better about him than you; he fled, because he knew that his only chance of escape was in flight, you may take my word for that. And now that you are satisfied, Lewis; now that you have received the testimony of some one you can credit, that your mother has not told you a lie; you will not hesitate, I trust, to take the only honorable step that remains for you, and immediately give up your very foolish engagement with this girl." Lewis looked up indignantly. "I am old enough certainly to manage that for myself. I shall make my own decision." Mrs. Ross rose, lowering in sullen anger, and left the room; and Anne, pale and excited, rose to claim her letters. The youth's heart was moved within Lewis Ross at last, in spite of all his premature prudence, and worldly wisdom; he met his sister's inquisitive, searching look, with his own face more subdued and milder. "Well, Anne?" Anne lifted the letters. "Is it possible, Lewis--is it possible, that you can have read these, and remain unconvinced? Has my father's charge no weight with you? Has Norman's distress no power? I cannot believe it--you feel as I do, Lewis, that Norman is not guilty." "I don't know, Anne--I can't see it," said Lewis, leaning his head on his hand. "Here is every chance against him--every circumstance, and nothing in his favor but these two incoherent rambling letters. He was an excitable nervous person himself, and my father was an old man, almost in his dotage. I have my mother's authority for saying so--and what is their mere assertion against all the evidence?" "What evidence, Lewis?"