She started violently and began to tremble, for there was a sharp pattering on her window-panes, as if some one had thrown a few small shot. Would Duncan Leslie dare to summon her like that? The pattering was repeated, and she went cautiously to the window, to make out in the gloom a figure that certainly was not that of Leslie. She opened the casement with nervous anxiety now. "Asleep?" cried a hasty voice. "There, stand aside--I'm coming up." There was a rustling noise--a sharp crack or two, a hand was thrown over the window-sill, and, panting with exertion, Harry clambered in. "Harry!" cried Louise in alarm, for his acts, his furtive way of coming to the house, and his manifest agitation did not suggest innocence. "Hush! Don't talk aloud. Where's the governor?" "Father is at Mr Van Heldre's." Harry drew in a quick spasmodic breath. "And Aunt Marguerite?" "In her room. But, Harry!" "Be quiet. Don't talk. Let me get my breath." Louise stood before him with her hands clasped, and a flow of agonising thoughts seeming to sweep her reason away. All was confusion, but above the flood there was one thing to which she clung--Harry was innocent. In spite of everything in the way of appearance, he was innocent; nothing should turn her from that. "Well," he said suddenly, "haven't you anything to say?" There was a savage vindictive tone in his voice which startled her more than his previous threatening way. "Yes; where have you been? Why do you come back like this?" "Where have I been? Up on the cliffs, wandering about among the rocks, and hiding till it grew dark and I could come home. And why did I come home like this? You know. Of course you have heard." "Mr Leslie came, and--" "Mr Leslie!" cried Harry with a mocking laugh. "Save us from our friends." Louise's sympathy swung round on the instant to the side of the attacked; and, hardly knowing what she said-- "Mr Leslie came to bear some terrible news, and to offer to help you." "To help me!" cried Harry, with the eagerness of him who catches at straws. "And you--what did you say?" "I said the information was false--a miserable invention. And I repeat it. Harry, it is not true?" He made no reply for a few moments, while, sobbing and terrified, Louise clung to him. "Harry," she said excitedly, "why do you not speak?" "Don't talk to me," he said hoarsely, "I'm thinking." "But, Harry, I laugh at Aunt Marguerite's follies about descent and our degradation; but it is your duty to make a stand for our father's sake. Who has dared to accuse you of all this?" "Don't talk to me," he said in an angry whisper, as he ran to the window and listened, crossing the room directly after to try the door. Louise gazed at him in a horrified way, and her heart sank down, down, as her brother's acts suggested the possibility of his guilt. Then, like a flash of light, a thought irradiated her darkening soul, and she caught her brother's arm. "I know!" she cried.