“No--out with it! Row with your uncle, eh? Rows with one's uncles are too commonplace to get mysterious over, and, then, we have no secrets. Ten chances to one I shall tell Felicia every word you say after you've gone, so she might as well hear it at first-hand. Felicia, this young fellow is so thin-skinned he is afraid you will laugh at him.” “Oh, he knows better. I have just been telling him how charming he must be to have won Miss MacFarlane's good opinion,” rejoined his sister as she moved her work-basket nearer her elbow. And then, with mind at rest, now that he was sure Ruth had not heard, and with eyes again blazing as his thoughts dwelt upon the outrage, he poured out his story, Miss Felicia listening intently, a curious expression on her face, Peter grave and silent, his gaze now on the boy, now on the hearth-rug on which he stood. Only once did a flash illumine his countenance; that was when Jack reached that part of his narrative which told of the denunciation he had flung in his uncle's face concerning the methods by which poor Gilbert had been ruined. “And you dared tell your uncle that, you young firebrand?” “Yes, Mr. Grayson, I had to; what else could I say? Don't you think it cruel to cheat like that?” “And what did he say?” asked Peter. “He would not listen--he swore at me--told me--well, he ordered me out of the room and had the lights put out.” “And it served you right, you young dog! Well, upon my word! Here you are without a dollar in the world except what your uncle pays you, and you fly off at a tangent and insult him in his own house--and you his guest, remember. Well! Well! What are we coming to? Felicia, did you ever hear of such a performance?” Miss Felicia made no answer. She knew from her brother's tone that there was not a drop of bitterness in any one of the words that fell from his lips; she had heard him talk that way dozens of times before, when he was casting about for some means of letting the culprit down the easier. She even detected a slight wrinkling of the corners of his mouth as the denunciation rolled out. Not so Jack: To him the end of the world had come. Peter was his last resort--that one so good and so clear-headed had not flared up at once over the villainy was the severest blow of all. Perhaps he WAS a firebrand; perhaps, after all, it was none of his business; perhaps--perhaps--now that Ruth would not blame him, knew nothing, in fact, of the disgraceful episode, it would have been better for him to have ignored the whole matter and taken Garry's advice. “Then I have done wrong again, Mr. Grayson?” he said at last, in so pleading a tone that even Miss Felicia's reserve was on the point of giving away.