In due time Geoffrey arrived. He was in high spirits and brought the best of news from Bognor. Neil was mending rapidly and would soon be on his feet again. Since he had found a friend and brother in Geoffrey he had become much less morbid, and was beginning to take quite a cheerful view of life. If his mother could only be proved innocent and set at liberty he would have little left to wish for. As for Ruth, his love for her had by some strange mental process been obliterated during his illness, and he rose from his sick-bed with nothing more than a strong feeling of friendship for the girl who had so recently been all the world to him. And, indeed, when Miss Cass came to hear of this she was not over well pleased. But it was not long before she blamed herself for her vanity, and reminded herself that this was quite the best thing that could have happened to her former lover. After dinner Mr. Cass carried Geoffrey off to the library; he particularly wanted to have a few words alone with him, he said. Heron had not the least idea what the subject of their talk was to be, Mr. Cass having merely invited him to spend a few days at Hollyoaks, saying he had an important subject to discuss with him. And it had passed through Geoffrey's mind that Ruth must have confided in her father their tacit engagement. He was a good deal astonished, therefore, when Mr. Cass abruptly informed him that the matter referred to was that of the Jenner murder. "Why, Mr. Cass!" exclaimed the young man. "How do you know about that? And what do you know?" "Ruth told me that you were interesting yourself in it," was the reply, "and I know all that she could tell me. I was not very pleased to find that she had been getting mixed up in the affair." "It was her own wish," Heron said. "I did not like it myself, and I should have been the last person in the world to tell her anything about it. But, after all, it was but the curiosity of a young girl. No one can blame her." "No one can blame any woman for being curious," Mr. Cass said, drily. "All the same, feminine curiosity can do a lot of mischief when it is not properly directed--as in this instance. Will you please to tell me, Heron, exactly how Ruth found it out?" Not knowing that Mr. Cass wished to compare his story with Ruth's, Geoffrey willingly consented, and informed him of Ruth's visit to Mrs. Jent, and how the outcome of it all, so far as he was concerned, had been his discovery of the fact that Ruth was willing to marry him. "And that is, after all, what I care most about," he said, with a happy look in his eyes. "I am very glad of it," Mr. Cass said, soberly. "I always wanted her to marry you; I think you will be able to control her. I was afraid at one time that she would have run away with Webster."