"Why should I repeat it?" said Jenny, objecting to this interference, as Tait guessed she would. "There was nothing wrong in the conversation with Mr. Tait that I know of." "There was nothing wrong in your telling Linton the story you found in _The Canterbury Observer_," replied Hilliston dryly; "yet it would have been as well had you not done so." "Father," cried Jenny, turning toward the old man with an appealing gesture, "have I done wrong?" "Yes, child," he answered, with a sigh, "very wrong, but you sinned in ignorance. Kerry told me you had found the bundle and read about the trial, but I passed that over. Now it is different. You repeated it to young Linton, and Mr. Hilliston tells me that all London knows the story through his book." "I am very sorry," said Jenny, after a pause, "but I really did not know that it was wrong of me to act as I have done. A bundle of old newspapers in a garret! Surely I was justified in reading them--in telling Frank what I conceived would be a good plot for a story." "I don't blame you, Miss Paynton," said Hilliston kindly; "but it so happens that your father did not want that affair again brought before the public. After all, you have had less to do with it than Fate." "Than Fate," interrupted Paynton, with a groan. "Good Heavens, am I to be----" "Paynton!" said Hilliston, in a warning voice. "I forgot," muttered the old man, with a shiver. "No more--no more. Jenny, tell us what you said to Mr. Tait." Considerably astonished, the girl repeated the conversation as closely as she could remember. Both Hilliston and her father listened with the keenest interest, and seemed relieved when she finished. "It is not so bad as I expected," said the former, with a nod. "All you have to do, Paynton, is to warn Kerry against gratifying the curiosity of these young men. They will be certain to ask him questions." "Kerry will baffle them; have no fear of that," said Paynton harshly, "and, Jenny, you are not to refer to this subject again with Mr. Tait." "Am I not to speak to him?" Her father interrogated Hilliston with a look, received a nod, and answered accordingly. "You can speak to Mr. Tait, if you choose, and no doubt you will be introduced by the vicar to Mr. Larcher. I place no prohibition on your speaking to them, but only warn you to avoid the subject of the Larcher affair. Promise!" "I promise. I am sorry I ever had anything to do with it." "Say no more about it, my dear," said Hilliston, patting her shoulder. "How could you be expected to know? But now you have been warned, do not speak more of it. We do not wish the unjustifiable curiosity of these idle young men to be gratified." "If you assist them to learn that which had better be hidden, you will ruin me," cried Paynton, with a passionate gesture. "Father! Ruin you?" "Yes! It means ruin, disgrace--perhaps death! Ah!" He broke down with a cry, and Hilliston, taking Jenny by the hand, led her to the door.