"All that happened last night. There was a dreadful quarrel between Dixon and Tom Burney; and that's how Dixon got hurt. He was stunned, and I thought he was dead; and Tom ran off, and, when Dixon came to himself, his one notion was that I was not to tell any one how he came by his fall." "So you promised to back him up in a lie!" said the rector, coldly. "One can scarcely wonder that you wished to keep the thing quiet, however. You've terribly misused God's good gift of a pretty face, Rose. You have played with two men; and chosen the wrong one, and driven the other half off his head with misery. Mercifully the good God has saved you from what must have been a miserable marriage, for there is more in Dixon's disappearance than we can see just yet." Rose's tears dried with her gathering indignation. It had not occurred to her to blame herself in any way; she felt rather in the position of the ill-used heroine of a tragedy in real life. "Then you think I ought to tell," she said a little sulkily. "I certainly think your mistress ought to know exactly what happened. You need not tell any one else, that I know of." So Rose returned to the Court greatly crestfallen; and her account of the quarrel, and Tom's vague threats about Dixon's character, put Mrs. Webster on to the right clue as to the causes of his sudden flight. He was found to have been guilty of repeated acts of dishonesty, so cleverly concealed that, but for the fear that Tom would report him, he might have gone on for years longer, respected and trusted by his employers. As the time seemed ripe for flight, however, he had taken with him the change of a big cheque that Mrs. Webster had given him to cash on the Saturday, and which he had told her glibly that he could not get cashed until the Monday. Each fresh revelation filled Rose with misery and shame; and, behind all, was the one fact that she had kept to herself: the memory of Tom's mention of that other girl that Dixon had jilted--the crowning taunt which had hurried Dixon into showing fight. "And it must have been true, or it would not have made him so angry," thought Rose. It was a bitter pill for the vain little thing to swallow: the conviction that she had all along occupied the second place in Dixon's affections, and that he had cast her away, like that other girl, without any compunction. Tom would not have done it; and at the remembrance of him Rose's eyes filled with tears. Rose was returning from the village, whither she had been sent on a message, and she shivered a little as she passed the scene of the last night's disaster; and her alarm found expression in a little cry when she saw Tom Burney standing there, too, and yet there was nothing to terrify her in the deprecating glance of his troubled eyes.