"My child," croaked Mrs. Mountford, in her bass voice, "this is not the time or place to say such truths." "Nor the time for Dr. Browne to make remarks about things which do not concern him," snapped the younger lady pertly. "I beg your pardon," said the doctor ceremoniously, "I have no right to interfere----" "I should think not," cried the irrepressible Maud, and was again frowned down by Mrs. Mountford, who seemed to be the mistress of all the proprieties. "I merely came to assure Miss Tedder that her cousin is innocent," finished Dr. Browne, and moved towards the front door. "So I think," observed the captain, who had taken no part in the war of words, "and anything I can do----" "You can do nothing," cried Miss Tedder, who seemed anxious to place her cousin in the dock. "If Angus is to be hanged, he will have to be hanged, though it is hard that I should suffer from such a disgrace. But papa's murderer must be punished." "I tell you Herries had nothing to do with the murder," said Dr. Browne, violently, and his face becoming suffused with blood. "I wonder at your persistence in accusing him." "I go by what Inspector Trent says, and----" "See here," remarked the sailor in his lazy drawl, "I don't like to see a fellow go to the wall, if I can help him. Miss Tedder," he bowed to Maud, "has consented to be my wife, but I do not think that either one of us would care to have a relative hanged for a capital offence. Besides, to my mind, the evidence is so clear that I believe Herries to be guiltless. I shall therefore go along with this gentleman, and learn what I can likely to help the poor fellow. Dr. Browne," he bowed to the medical man, and in a somewhat foreign fashion by clicking his heels together, "I understand, also wishes to prove Mr. Herries' innocence." "I do," said the doctor doggedly, and wondering why the Captain was so anxious to assist, "and I intend to." "In that case," Kyles extended a small and shapely hand, "we may as well work together." Browne took the hand. Indeed, he could do nothing else. "But I should like to know why you are so certain that Herries is innocent?" "Are _you_ not certain?" inquired Kyles gravely. "Yes, but then I know Herries well, and although appearances are dead against him, I----" "Hold on," remarked the sailor in a somewhat American fashion, "it is because appearances are dead against him that I assist. Both in the States out West and in Mexico, I was nearly lynched for horse-stealing. The evidence was plumb against me, and but that good-luck came my way at the eleventh hour, I should have been a goner. Can you wonder then that my sympathies are with Herries?" "I see, you have a fellow feeling." "You might put it that way." "The hall," boomed Mrs. Mountford once more, "is scarcely the place to discuss these matters."