Part 33 (1/2)

'Then come home with me. You shall see no one, and you will look up when you are not faint and fasting. You young men don't stand up against these things like us old stagers.'

As the carriage stopped, several anxious faces were seen on the watch, but the Doctor signed them back till he had deposited Henry in his study, and then came among them.

Gertrude was the first to speak. 'O, papa, papa, what is it! Mrs.

Pugh has been here to ask, and Ethel won't let me hear, though Tom and Aubrey know.'

'I took refuge in your order to believe nothing till you came,' said Ethel, with hands tightly clasped together.

'It is true, then?' asked Tom.

'True that it looks as bad as bad can be,' said the Doctor, sighing heavily, and proceeding to state the aspect of the case.

'It is a trick--a plot,' cried Aubrey pa.s.sionately; 'I know it is! He always said he would run away if they tried to teach him dishonesty; and now they have done this and driven him away, and laid the blame on him. Ethel, why don't you say you are sure of it?'

'Leonard would be changed indeed if this were so,' said Ethel, trembling as she stood, and hardly able to speak articulately.

Aubrey broke out with a furious 'If,' very different from Henry Ward's.

'It would not be the Leonard we knew at Coombe,' said Ethel. 'He might be blind with rage, but he would never be cowardly. No. Unless he own it, nothing shall ever make me believe it.'

'Own it! For shame, Ethel,' cried Aubrey. And even the Doctor exclaimed, 'You are as bad as poor Henry himself, who has not got soul enough to be capable of trusting his brother.'

'I do trust,' said Ethel, looking up. 'I shall trust his own word,'

and she sat down without speaking, and knitted fast, but her needles clattered.

'And how about that poor girl at Bankside?' said the Doctor.

'I went down there,' said Tom, 'just to caution the servants against bringing in stories. She found out I was there, and I had to go in and make the best of it.'

'And what sort of a best?' said the Doctor.

'Why, she knew he used to get out in the morning to bathe, and was persuaded he had been drowned; so I told her I knew he was alive and well, and she would hear all about it when you came back. I brought the youngest child away with me, and Gertrude has got her up-stairs; the other would not come. Poor thing! Mary says she is very good and patient; and I must say she was wonderfully reasonable when I talked to her.'

'Thank you, Tom,' said his father with warmth, 'it was very kind of you. I wonder if Ave knew anything of this runaway business; it might be the saving of him!'

'I did,' said Aubrey eagerly; 'at least, I know he said he would not stay if they wanted to put him up to their dishonest tricks; and he talked of that very window!'

'Yes, you imprudent fellow; and you were telling Mrs. Pugh so, if I hadn't stopped you,' said Tom. 'You'll be taken up for an accomplice next, if you don't hold your tongue.'

'What did he say?' asked the Doctor, impatiently; and then declared that he must instantly go to Bankside, as soon as both he and Henry had taken some food; 'for,' he added, 'we are both too much shaken to deal rationally with her.'

Ethel started up in shame and dismay at having neglected to order anything. The Doctor was served in the study alone with Henry, and after the briefest meal, was on his way to Bankside.

He found Averil with the crimson cheek and beseeching eye that he knew so well, as she laid her trembling hand on his, and mutely looked up like a dumb creature awaiting a blow.

'Yes, my dear,' he said, tenderly, 'your brother needs prayer such as when we watched him last year, he is in peril of grave suspicion.' And as she stood waiting and watching for further explanation, he continued, 'My dear, he told you everything. You do not know of any notion of his of going away, or going out without leave?'

'Why is Leonard to be always suspected of such things?' cried Averil.

'He never did them!'

'Do you know?' persisted Dr. May.