"I am sent to bed," said Leo mockingly; and she was passing on, but Salis caught her by the arm and checked her. Then he led her to the far end of the room before returning to close the door and help Mary to her couch. "I can speak now," he said, in a low voice full of passion, but at the same time well under control. "Where have you been?" "Hartley!" said Mary appealingly. "Hush, my child," he replied. "I know what I am saying. I wish to avoid the scandal of this being known to the servants, but your position and mine demand an explanation. Leo Salis, where have you been?" She turned her handsome, defiant face towards where he stood, and now it was beginning; to be visible in the soft dawn, pale, fierce, and implacable as that of one who has recklessly set every law at defiance and is ready to dare all. "Where have I been?" she said. "Out!" "I insist upon a proper reply to my question. I say, where have you been?" "There!" she cried; "there is no need to fence. You know where I have been?" "To meet that man Candlish, after promising me that your intercourse with him should be at an end; and, to make things worse, you have stolen from the house in this disgraceful, clandestine way." "Is there any need for this?" said Leo sharply. "There, if you wish to know, I have been to Candlish Hall. Sir Thomas is forbidden this house, so you force me to go to him. You knew where I had been." "Yes, I knew where you had been," assented Salis, as Mary looked from one to the other, not knowing what to say. "Now, answer me a question," cried Leo fiercely. "Was it Horace North, in his mean, contemptible, jealous spite, who set you to watch me?" "Leo!" cried Mary, stung to words by her sister's accusation. "Silence! What is it to you, you miserable worm?" cried Leo furiously. "My home has been made a purgatory for months past by you and dear Hartley here. Plotting together both of you to make me miserable, to treat me as a little girl, and to check me at every turn. What Hartley did not try, you thought, and suggested to him till my very soul recoiled against you both and your miserable tyranny. I say it was North--the mean wretch--who set you to watch me." "Horace North is too true a man to give you a second thought; too stern and upright to speak of you after your cruel treachery to him." "It is not true. I was neither cruel nor treacherous to him," cried Leo. "He told me nothing. Your acts are growing public, or I should not have known what I know now; and this must have an end." "What end?" said Leo shrewishly. "Am I to be confined to my room? Bah! I have had enough of all this. Yes, I have been to see the man I love, and will go again and again." "To your disgrace." "To my disgrace, or to my death, if I like," cried Leo fiercely. "I'll have no more of this humdrum, miserable life, where I must neither move nor stir save as my brother and sister ordain." "Have you thought what this means?" said Salis sternly.