Mark had his doubts as to the strict propriety of acceding to this request--at all events until it had been sanctioned by some higher authority than Colin--but then he remembered Mabel's anxiety on the night of the dinner; if he could only set this child's mind at ease, would not that excuse any breach of conventionality--would it not win a word of gratitude from her sister? He could surely take a little risk and trouble for such a reward as that; and so, with his usual easy confidence, he accepted a task which was to cost him dear enough. 'You'd better leave me to manage this, young man,' he said at the door. 'Run off to your sister Mabel and explain things, tell her where I am and why, you know.' And he went into the library alone. Dolly was crouching there in an arm-chair, worn out by sobbing and the weight of a terror she dared not speak of, which had broken her down at last. Mark, who was good-natured enough in his careless way, was touched by the utter abandonment of her grief; for the first time he began to think it must be something graver than a mere childish trouble, and, apart from all personal motives, longed sincerely to do something, if he could, to restore Dolly to her old childish self. He forgot everything but that, and the unselfish sympathy he felt gave him a tact and gentleness with which few who knew him best would have credited him. Gradually, for at first she would say nothing, and turned away in lonely hopelessness, he got her to confess that she was very unhappy; that she had done something which she must never, never tell to anybody. Then she started up with a flushed face and implored him to go away and leave her. '_Don't_ make me tell you!' she begged piteously. 'Oh, I know you mean to be kind, I _do_ like you now--only I can't tell you, really. Please, _please_ go away--I'm so afraid of telling you.' 'But why?' said Mark. 'I'm not very good myself, Dolly--you need not be afraid of me.' 'It isn't that,' said Dolly, with a shudder; 'but _he_ said if I told anyone they would have to send me to prison.' 'Who dared to tell you a wicked lie like that?' said Mark indignantly, all the manhood in him roused by the stupid cruelty of it. 'It wasn't Colin, was it, Dolly?' 'No, not Colin; it was Harold--Harold Caffyn. Oh, Mr. Ashburn,' she said, with a sudden gleam of hope, 'wasn't it _true_? He said papa was a lawyer, and would have to help the law to punish me----' 'The infernal scoundrel!' muttered Mark to himself, but he saw that he was getting to the bottom of the mystery at last. 'So he told you that, did he?' he continued; 'did he say it to tease you, Dolly?' 'I don't know. He often used to tease, but never like that before, and I _did_ do it--only I never never meant it.'