peech. Just in time, too, to fly before Reginald
left the drawing-room and took his way to the study.

Rose played no piano that morning; but, locked in her own room, made the
most of what she had heard and seen. Kate had the drawing-room to
herself, and sat, with clasped hands, looking out at the bright March
morning. The business of the day went on in the house, doors opened and
shut, Grace and Eeny came in and went away again, Doctor Frank came up
to see Agnes Darling, who was nearly well; and in the study, Reginald
Stanford was hearing the story of Miss Danton's midnight stroll.

"You must have heard it sooner or later," Captain Danton said, "between
this and next June. As well now as any other time."

Stanford bowed and waited.

"You have not resided in this house for so many weeks without hearing of
the invalid upstairs, whom Ogden attends, who never appears in our
midst, and about whom all in the house are more or less curious?"

"Mr. Richards?" said Stanford, surprised.

"Yes, Mr. Richards; you have heard of him. It was Mr. Richards whom you
saw with Kate last night."

Reginald Stanford dropped the paper-knife he had been drumming with, and
stared blankly at Captain Danton.

"Mr. Richards!" he echoed; "Mr. Richards, who is too ill to leave his
room!"

"Not now," said Captain Danton, calmly; "he was when he first came here.
You know what ailed Macbeth--a sickness that physicians could not cure.
That is Mr. Richards' complaint--a mind diseased. Remorse and terror are
that unhappy young man's ailments and jailers."

There was a dead pause. Reginald Stanford, still "far wide," gazed at
his father-in-law-elect, and waited for something more satisfactory.

"It is not a pleasant story to tell," Captain Danton went on, in a
subdued voice; "the story of a young man's folly, and madness, and
guilt; but it must be told. The man you saw last night is barely
twenty-three years of age, but all the promise of his life is gone; from
henceforth he can be nothing more than a hunted outcast, with the stain
of murder on his soul."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed his hearer; "and Kate walks with such a man,
alone, and at midnight?"

"Yes," said Kate's father, proudly "and will again, please Heaven. Poor
boy! poor, unfortunate boy! If Kate and I were to desert him, he would
be lost indeed."

"This is all Greek to me," said Stanford, coldly. "If the man be what
you say, a murderer, nothing can excuse Miss Danton's conduct.