"I want to see him," she continued, walking into the family parlour, then vacant. "Ask him to come to me." It appeared that he could not come without his attendant in the curious hat, for when Mr. St. John, who came down immediately, entered the room, that gentleman's hat and head appeared over his shoulder. Very haughtily Mr. St. John waved him off, and closed the door to shut him out. "Georgina, what brings you here?" "How did it happen?" she asked eagerly. "Are you really arrested?" "Really and truly," he said, speaking in a tone of hauteur that perhaps veiled a feeling of bitter mortification. "The marvel does not lie in that, but in how you came to know of it." "I guessed it," said Georgina. "_Guessed_ it!" She quietly told him the whole from the beginning: her meeting with the man in the morning, the news Mrs. St. John brought about the note, the fancied view of Lady Anne. "The truth seemed to come over me in a moment," she concluded. "I knew you were arrested; I was sure it was nothing else. And I ran all the way here to ask if I can do anything for you. I saw by the note that you dare not tell Mrs. St. John." "Dare is not quite the word, Georgina. If I can spare her I will do so, for I know it would grieve her cruelly. The affair would not have been the trouble of a quarter-of-an-hour, but for Isaac's being away. Things always do happen by contraries." "You think he would--he would--what could he have done?" she asked, her anxious face and its earnest eyes turned up to him. "He would have paid the claim and set me free. As it is, nothing can be done until he comes home tomorrow." "How much is the claim?" Frederick St. John drew in his lips. "It is amidst the hundreds. Nay, how scared you look! It was a clever trick, their sending the fellow down here after me." "Who is he?" asked Georgina, lowering her voice, with an instinctive conviction that the individual in question was rather near the outside of the door. "He's nobody," was the reply. "But, nevertheless, he is master of me just now, by virtue of the law. He considers himself a model of consideration and benevolence, and will expect me to acknowledge it substantially: otherwise he would have taken me off pretty quickly." "Where to?" "To--it is an ugly word, Georgina--prison." "Oh! But you will stop that, won't you?" "Isaac will. The annoying part of the business is, that he should be away just this day of all days. It is rather singular, too, considering that he is at home from year's end to year's end. There's no help for it, however, and here I must stop until he does return, hiding myself like a mouse, lest I should be seen, and the news carried to my mother." "Can't I help you?--can't I do anything for you?" "Thank you always, Georgina. You are a good little girl, after all. No, nothing." She pouted her pretty lips. "Except keep the secret. And go home again as soon as possible. What would your mamma say if she knew you had come?" he asked.