udy, mud and all, and tell me--tell me what you
_know_, not what you have been making up, mind! I'm going to have
the truth."

"Well, you can't," returned her brother, shortly, as he allowed himself
to be dragged across the hall, which looked cheerless enough without a
fire, and with the great, clumsy, hideous, maimed old Yule log filling
up the fireplace and reminding everybody of all that it had cost.

Doreen pushed him into the study and shut the door.

"Why can't I know the truth?" asked she, eying him steadily. "Do you
mean that you have found out Dudley doesn't care for me."

Max glanced at his sister's face, and then looked away. He had not known
till that moment, when he caught the tender look of anxiety in her big
brown eyes, how strong her love of Dudley was. An impulse of anger
against the man seized him, and he frowned.

"Why, surely you know already that he doesn't care for you, in the way
he ought to care, or he would never have neglected you, never have given
you up!" said he, ferociously.

"I'm not so sure about that. At any rate I want to know what you found
out. Don't think I'm not strong enough to bear it, whatever it is!"

"Well, then, I'll tell you. He _is_ off his head. He has got mixed
up in some way with a set of people no sane man would trust himself with
for half an hour, and--and--and--well, they say--the people say he's done
something that would hang him. There! Is that enough for you?"

He felt that he was a brute to tell her, but he could see no other way
out of the difficulty in which her own persistency had placed him. She
stared at him for a few seconds with blanched cheeks, clasping her
hands. Then she said in a whisper:

"You don't mean--murder?"

Her brother's silence gave her the answer.

There was a long pause. Then she spoke in a changed voice, under her
breath:

"Poor Dudley!"

Max was astonished to see her take the announcement so quietly.

"Well, now you see that it is impossible to do anything for him, don't
you?"

"Indeed, I do not!" retorted Doreen, with spirit. "We don't know the
story yet. We don't know whether there is any truth in it at all; or, if
there is, what the difficulties were that he was in. Look, Max. You must
remember how worried he has been lately. I have heard him make excuses
for people who did rash things, and I have always agreed with him. You
see, I knew how good-hearted he was, and I know that he would never have
done anything mean or