d like you! Well, you've made up your mind, and I'll be
just to you, my lad. You shall be started well. When would you like to
go?"

"When you drive me away, uncle," cried the boy, passionately. "Oh,
uncle, won't you listen to me--won't you believe in me? How can you
think me such a coward as to leave you, knowing what I do?"

The old man caught him by the shoulders, held him back at arm's length,
and stood gazing fiercely in his eyes for a few moments, and then his
own began to soften, and he said, gently:

"Aleck, when I was your age my sister and I were constant companions.
You have her voice, boy, and there is a ring in it so like--oh, so like
hers! Yes, I heard, and I believe in you. I believe, too, that you
will respect my prayers to you that all I have said this night shall be
held sacred. I do not wish the world to know our secrets. But, there,
there," he said, in a totally changed voice, "what a day this has been
for us both! You have suffered cruelly, my boy, for my sake, and I in
my blindness and bitterness treated you ill."

"Oh, uncle, pray, pray say no more!" cried the boy, piteously.

"I must--just this, Aleck: I have suffered too, my boy. Another black
shadow had come across my darkened life, and in my ignorance I turned
against you as I did. Aleck, boy, your uncle asks your forgiveness,
and--now no more, my boy; it is nearly midnight, and we must try and
rest. Can you go to sleep again?"

"Yes, uncle," cried the boy, eagerly, "I feel as if it will be easy now.
Good-night, uncle."

"Good-night, my boy," whispered the old man, huskily, and he hurried
out, whispering words of thankfulness to himself; but they were words
the nephew did not hear.

As the door closed Aleck sprang off the bed on to his feet, his knuckles
smarting as he struck an attitude and tightly clenched his fists, seeing
in imagination Big Jem the slanderer standing before him once again.

"You cowardly brute!" he muttered; and then his aspect changed in the
dim light shed by the candle, for there was a look of joyous pride in
his countenance, disfigured though it was, as he said, hurriedly: "I
didn't half tell uncle that I thoroughly whipped him, after all. But
old Tom Bodger--he'll be as pleased as Punch."

It was rather a distorted smile on Aleck's lips, as, after undressing,
he fell fast asleep, but it was a very happy one all the same, and so
thought Captain Lawrence as he stole into the room in the grey dawn