A silence ensued. Clarice concealed her face in Anthony's breast, and he held her tightly to him, feeling absolutely helpless under the strain of the moment, and feeling also that he was unable to console her in any way. The door creaked and swung inward gently under a scratching paw, and old Jane hobbled into the room, on the look-out for afternoon tea. Seeing Ferdy on the ground, she went up to him and licked the hands which concealed his face. In a mechanical manner he smoothed her head, and in the stillness the clock on the mantelpiece could be heard ticking steadily in the pauses of the beating rain. Anthony was the first to recover his composure. "We must come to some arrangement before Jerce arrives," he said. "Jerce!" Ferdy leaped to his feet so unexpectedly that Jane ran under the sofa with a howl of dismay. "Jerce?" "He is coming down--he will be here in a few minutes. Clarice, dear"--he led her to an armchair--"sit down and compose yourself." "I am all right now," said Clarice, in a suffocating voice, and calmed her unruly nerves with a violent effort. "Now then, Ferdy," she said, in an ominously quiet voice, "we are waiting for your story." "How much do you know of it?" asked the miserable young man. "As much as Zara could tell me," said his sister, in a sad voice, "as much as Osip knew." "You have seen Osip?" "Yes. I need not tell you how I came to meet him. But he accuses you of the murder of Uncle Henry, and for all I know, he may already have given notice to the police." "What?" asked Ferdy, in a grating voice, "when he is wanted himself, and for that crime?" "Osip is innocent of this particular crime," interposed Ackworth. "Then if he did not kill Uncle Henry, I don't know who did," declared Ferdy, his face becoming sullen. "You WILL tell lies," said Clarice, between her teeth. "It is the truth; I swear it is the truth." "Tell your story and let us judge," said Ackworth, imperiously, "and remember, that your life is at stake." "Would you betray me?" "We would save you, and only by knowing the absolute truth can we save you. Come, Baird, out with it." Ferdy stared at the ground, and felt that he was being very hardly treated by the two before him. He stole a look at their set faces, and saw that he would have to lay bare the secrets of his shallow, false life. A bolder man would have braved the matter out; a weaker man would have fainted in the extremity of his terror. But Ferdy Baird, half fool, half knave, acted up to his double character--that is, he told all that could place him in a pleasant light, and suppressed what he could. But by questioning and browbeating the lovers got the truth out of him at last. In substance his story came to this, but he told it in a somewhat different way:-- "Since you must know all," he said, sullenly, and with his eyes on the carpet, "Jerce is the one to blame for the whole trouble; and Uncle Henry is also--"