“Here, Aubrey!” said his mother, “I have called upon you to hear what you are accused of. You thought it was Laura Lance, but she has nothing to do with it. You are accused of travelling from Germany, that time when you were sent off from Cologne--the time those Kingswards turned upon you”--(the girls both started, and recovered themselves a little at the shock of this contemptuous description),--“travelling in sleeping carriages and I know not what with a woman and children, who were believed to belong to you! What have you to say?” “That was not what I said, Mrs. Leigh.” “What have you to say?” cried Mrs. Leigh, waving her hand to silence Betty; “the accused has surely the right to speak first.” “What have I to say? But to what, mother? What is it? Was I travelling with a woman and children? I suppose I was travelling--with all the women and children that were in the same train. But otherwise, of course you know I was with nobody. What does it mean?” Bee got up from the sofa like a ghost, her blue eyes wild, her face pale. “Oh, let us go, let us go! Do not torment us,” she said. “I will acknowledge that it was not true. Now that I see him I am sure that it was not true. I was mad. I was so stung to think---- Mrs. Leigh, do not kill me! I did him no harm; do not, do not go over it any more!” “Go over what?” cried Aubrey. “Bee! She can’t stand, she doesn’t see where she is going. Mother, what on earth does it matter what was against me if it is all over? Mother! How dare you torture my poor girl--?” This was naturally all the thanks Mrs. Leigh got for her efforts to unravel the mystery, which the reader knows was the most innocent mystery, and which had never been cleared up or thought of since that day. It came clear of itself the moment that Aubrey, only to support her, took Bee into his arms. CHAPTER XVIII. The Sorceress walked away very slowly down the street.