He was listening to the echoing of his sister's words, which seemed to go and on thrilling through the mazes of his brain, an infinitesimally keen and piercing sound at last, but still so plain and clear-- "_If he should die_!" Volume 2, Chapter IV. UNCLE LUKE GROWS HARDER. "I would not stop over these, my dears," said Vine, as they sat at breakfast, which was hardly tasted, "but if I neglect them they will die." He had a glass globe on the table, and from time to time he went on feeding with scraps of mussel the beautiful specimens of actiniae attached to a fragment of rock. "We'll all go directly and see if we can be of any use. I'm glad Knatchbull called as he went by." "But what news!" said Louise sadly. "It seems so terrible. Only yesterday evening so well, and now--" She finished her remark with a sob. "It is very terrible," said her father; "but I hope we shall soon hear that the villains are caught." Harry sat holding the handle of his teacup firmly, and gazing straight before him. "You'll go up to the office, of course, my boy?" said Vine. "Eh? Go up to the office?" cried Harry, starting. "Yes, as if nothing had happened. Do all you can to assist Crampton." "Yes, father." "He was very quiet and reserved when I went in at seven; quite snappish, I might say. But he was too much occupied and troubled, I suppose, to be very courteous to such an old idler as I am. Ah!" he continued, as a figure passed the window, "here's Uncle Luke." A cold chill had run through Harry at the mention of Crampton--a chill of horror lest he should suspect anything; and now, at the announcement of his uncle's approach, he felt a flush run up to his temples, and as if the room had suddenly become hot. "Morning," said Uncle Luke, entering without ceremony, a rush basket in one hand, his strapped-together rod in the other. "Breakfast? Late for breakfast, isn't it?" "No, Luke, no; our usual time," said his brother mildly. "You will sit down and have some, uncle?" "_No_, Louie, no," he replied, nodding his head and looking a little less hard at her. "I've had some bread and skim milk, and I'm just off to catch my dinner. The idiot know?" "My dear Luke!" said his brother mildly, as Uncle Luke made a gesture upward towards Aunt Marguerite's room; "why will you strive to increase the breach between you and our sister?" "Well, she tells every one that I'm mad. Why shouldn't I call her an idiot? But nice goings on, these. Wonder you're all alive." "Then you have heard?" "Heard? Of course. If I hadn't I could have read it in your faces. Look here, sir," he cried, turning sharply on his nephew, "where were you last night?" Harry clutched the table-cloth that hung into his lap. "I? Last night?" he faltered. "Yes; didn't I speak plainly? Where were you last night? Why weren't you down at Van Heldre's, behaving like a man, and fighting for your master along with your henchman?"