"I was somewhere about this spot when the half-hour struck last night, for your clocks were fast," remarked Rupert. "I ran all the way home after that--with what success, you know. I can't run to-night." "I'll do my best to get you in," said George. "I hope I sha'n't be tempted, though, to speak my mind too plainly to Chattaway." The Hold was closed for the night. Lights appeared in several of the windows. Rupert halted when he saw the light in one of them. "Aunt Diana must have returned," he said; "that's her room." George Ryle rang a loud, quick peal at the bell. It was not answered. He rang again, a sharp, urgent peal, and shouted with his stentorian voice; a prolonged shout that could not have come from the lungs of Rupert; and it brought Mr. Chattaway to the window of his wife's dressing-room in surprise. One or two more windows in different parts of the house were thrown up. "It is I, Mr. Chattaway. I have been assisting Rupert home. Will you be good enough to have the door opened?" Mr. Chattaway was nearly struck dumb with the insolence of the demand, coming from the quarter it did. He could scarcely speak at first, even to refuse. "He does not deserve your displeasure to-night," said George, in his clear, ringing tones, which might be heard distinctly ever so far off. "He could scarcely get here from fatigue and illness. But for taking a rest at my mother's house, and having the help of my arm up here, I question if he would have got as far. Be so good as to let him in, Mr. Chattaway." "How dare you make such a request to me?" roared Mr. Chattaway, recovering himself a little. "How dare you come disturbing the peace of my house at night, like any house-breaker--except that you make more noise about it!" "I came to bring Rupert," was George's answer. "He is waiting to be let in; tired and ill." "I will not let him in," raved Mr. Chattaway. "How dare you, I ask?" "What _is_ all this?" broke from the amazed voice of Miss Diana Trevlyn. "What does it mean? I don't comprehend it in the least." George looked up at her window. "Rupert could not get home by the hour specified by Mr. Chattaway--half-past ten. I am asking that he may be admitted now, Miss Trevlyn." "Of course he can be admitted," said Miss Diana. "Of course he sha'n't," retorted Mr. Chattaway. "Who says he couldn't get home in time if he had wanted to come?" called out Cris from a window on the upper story. "Does it take him five or six hours to walk from Blackstone?" "Is that you, Christopher?" asked George, falling back a little that he might see him better. "I want to speak to you. By what right did you take possession of my horse at Blackstone this afternoon, and ride him home?" "I chose to do it," said Cris.