She met a few people, but no one recognised her, enveloped as she was in a heavy cloak. For a moment or two she paused before the door of the Penlogans' cottage. Her heart was beating very fast, and she felt like a bird of evil omen. If Ralph was innocent, then he knew nothing of the trouble that was looming ahead, and she would be the petrel to announce the coming storm. She gave a timid rat-tat at the door, and after a moment or two it was opened by Ruth. "Why, Miss Dorothy!" And Ruth started back in surprise. "Is your brother at home?" Dorothy questioned, with a little gasp. "Why, yes. Won't you come in?" "Would you mind asking him to come to the door. I have only a moment or two to spare." "You had better come into the passage," Ruth said, "and I will go at once and tell him you are here." Dorothy stepped over the threshold and stood under the small lamp that lighted the tiny hall. In a few moments Ralph stood before her, his cheeks flushed, and an eager, questioning light in his eyes. She looked at him eagerly for a moment before she spoke, and could not help thinking how handsome he looked. "I have come on a strange errand," she said, speaking rapidly, "and I fear there is more trouble in store for you. But tell me first, have you ever lifted a finger against my father?" "Never, Miss Dorothy! Why do you ask?" "And you have never planned, or purposed, or attempted to do him harm?" "Why, no, Miss Dorothy. Why should you think of such a thing?" "My father was shot this afternoon in Treliskey Plantation. He saw a face for a moment peering over a hedge; the next moment there was a flash and a report, and a part of the charge entered his left arm and shoulder. He is in bed now, and Mr. Tregonning is taking his depositions. He vows that it was your face that he saw peering over the hedge--that it was you who shot him." Ralph's face grew ashen while she was speaking, and a look almost of terror crept into his eyes. The difficulty and peril of his position revealed themselves in a moment. How could he prove that Sir John Hamblyn was mistaken? "But you do not believe it, Miss Dorothy?" he questioned. "You tell me that you are innocent?" she asked, almost in a whisper. "I am as innocent as you are," he said; and he looked frankly and appealingly into her eyes. For a moment or two she looked at him in silence, then she said in the same low tone-- "I believe you." And she held out her hand to him, and then turned towards the door. He had a hundred things to say to her, but somehow the words would not come. He watched her cross the threshold and pass out into the darkness, and he stood still and had not the courage to follow her. It would have been at least a neighbourly thing to see her to the lodge gates, for the night was unillumined by even a star, but his lips refused to move. He stood stock-still, as if riveted to the ground.