That young man had been at Idle Hour entirely too often; he had thought so all along, and now he was very sure of it! "This comes of being too kind," he muttered.
Then he paused suddenly--but no, that was absurd--utterly absurd; Elizabeth would have told him! He was certain of this, for had she not told him all her secrets?
But suppose--suppose--and again he put the idea from him.
He found Elizabeth in the small, daintily furnished sitting-room which Mrs.Herbert had called her "boudoir", and seated himself, none too gently, in a fragile gilt chair which his bulk of bone and muscle threatened to wreck.

Elizabeth glanced up from _Their Wedding Journey_, which she was reading for the second time.
"What is it, father ?" she asked, for his feeling of doubt and annoyance was plainly shown in his expressive face.
"Thompson has just come out from town--he says that John North has been arrested for the McBride murder--" The book slipped from Elizabeth's hand and fell to the floor; the smile with which she had welcomed her father faded from her lips; she gazed at him with pale face and wide eyes.

The general instantly regretted that he had spoken with such cruel abruptness.
"You don't think it is true ?" she asked in a whisper.
"Thompson seemed to know what he was talking about." "It's monstrous!" she cried.
"If North is innocent--" began the general.
"Father!" She regarded him with a look of horror and astonishment.

"You don't like him! It's that, isn't it ?" she added after a moment's silence.
"I don't like any one who gets into a scrape such as this!" replied the general with miserable and unnecessary heat.
"But it wasn't _his_ fault--he couldn't help it!" "I don't suppose he could," replied her father grimly.
She rose and came close to his side.
"Father!" she said in a tone of entreaty, placing a hand on his arm.
"What is it, dear ?" There was both tenderness and concern in his keen gray eyes as he glanced up into her troubled face.
"I want you to go to him--to Mr.North, I mean.

I want you to tell him how sorry you are; I want him to know--I--" she paused uncertainly.
Perhaps for the first time in her life she was not quite sure of her father's sympathy.