Edith got up and went across the room and knelt down at the boy's side, leaning against his chair and looking up into his face. "Flory, you may lie with your voice, but you cannot stifle your heart within you. You have confessed the truth." "I have not," said Flory; "I wasn't in it at all." "Who says that you were in it? But you know." "'Deed and I know nothin'." Now the boy began to cry. "You have no right to say I did it. Why should I do the likes of that?" "Where were you at four o'clock yesterday afternoon?" asked Edith. "I was just out, up at the lodge yonder." "Flory, I know that you have seen this thing done. I am as certain of it as though I had been there myself." "I haven't seen anything done--and I won't stay here to be questioned this way," said the boy, feeling that his blushes would betray him, and his incapacity to "lie square," as the Americans say. Then the two sisters were left to talk over the matter together. "Did you not see it in his face?" said Edith. "Yes, I saw something. But you don't mean to say that he knew it was to be done? That would make him a fiend." "No; I don't think he knew it was to be done. But when Frank was teasing him the other day about his Catholic nonsense, and saying that he would not trust a Papist, Florian took the part of Pat Carroll. If there be a man about the place who would do a base turn to father, it's Pat Carroll. Now I know that Flory was down near the lough yesterday afternoon. Biddy Ryan saw him. If he went on he must have seen the water coming in." "What shall we do?" asked Ada. "Ah!--that's just it. What shall we do? If he could be made to tell the truth, that would be best. But as he denies it, father will believe him. Florian will say that we are spiting him because of his religion." "But, Edith, we must tell father." At last it was decided that Edith should take the boy and talk to him. He was more prone to listen to Edith than to Ada. Edith did find her brother, and talked to him for an hour,--but in vain. He had managed to collect himself after his past breakdown, and was better able to bear the examination to which his sister put him, than at the first moment. He still blushed when he was questioned; till he became dogged and surly. The interview ended with repeated asseverations on Flory's part, that he knew nothing of the meadows. Mr. Jones and his eldest son returned to the house, having been absent the entire day. "As sure as I am a living man, Pat Carroll has been at the doing of it," said Frank. "He cannot have done it alone," said Ada. "There have been others in it." "That has been the worst of it," said the father. "Of course I have known since the beginning of the year, that that man would do any devil's turn of work against me. But one man cannot do much." "Too much! too much!" said Edith.