"There: you hear me," he said. "I'm only a boy blubbering like this, but I feel pain as a man. I tell you, Clairy, dear sis, it has driven me nearly mad to know that this false charge was hanging over my father, and that he was in prison. The fellows at the mess have seemed to shrink from me, all but the Colonel, but whenever he has said a kind word to me I've known it was because the old man was in prison, and it has been like a knife going into me. I couldn't bear it. I hated myself, and I fought, I tell you, to do what was right, but I couldn't. It was as if the devil were dragging at me to draw me away, till this came, and then I felt that I could be a man, and now," he cried, raising himself, and shaking his hair back, as he threw up his head proudly, "forgive me, sis, or no--Damn my commission! Damn the regiment! Damn the whole world! I'm going down to the prison to stand by my poor old father, come what may." "My darling!" Claire's arms were round his neck, and for the space of a few minutes she sobbed hysterically, as she strained him to her breast. "What, sis? You forgive me?" he cried, as her kisses were rained upon his face. "Forgive you, my own brave, true brother? Yes," she cried. "Of course I know what you have suffered. I know it all. It was a bitter struggle, dear, but you have conquered, and I never felt so proud of you as I feel now." "Sis!" The tears that stole down from Claire's eyes seemed to give her the relief her throbbing brain had yearned for all these painful days, and her face lit up with a look of joy to which it had been a stranger for months. "You will go to him then, dear?" she whispered, with the bright aspect fading out again, to give place to a cold, ashy look of dread, as the horror of their position came back, and the shadow of what seemed to Claire to be inevitable now crossed her spirit. "Yes, I'm going. Poor old fellow! It will be a horrible shock to him about Fred." "About Fred?" "Yes. Had I better tell him?" "Tell him?" faltered Claire. "Yes. I thought not. He has enough to bear. I thought," said the lad bitterly, "that I was doing a brave thing when they brought him in. I said he was my poor brother: but I found that they all knew. Claire! Sis!" She had staggered from him, and would have fallen had he not held on to her hand. "Speak--tell me!" she cried. "No, no! I can't bear it! Don't tell me there is some new trouble come." "What! Didn't you know?" She shook her head wildly, and wrung her hands and tried to speak, while he held her and whispered softly: "Oh, sis--sis--dear sis!" "Something has happened to Fred," she panted at last. "Tell me: I can bear it now. Anything. I am used to trouble, dear." "My poor sis!" he whispered. "Why do you not tell me?" she cried wildly. "Do you not see how you are torturing me? Speak--tell me. What of Fred?" Her imperious, insistent manner seemed to force the lad to speak, and he said, slowly and unwillingly: