houlders; "you
must have been up to some mischief, Jock and you, or you would not look
so frightened. What is the secret?" he said, with his genial laugh. But
when he looked from Jock, astonished but resentful and lowering, to
Lucy, all trembling and pale with guilt, even Sir Tom, who was not
suspicious, was startled. His little Lucy! What had she been plotting
that made her look so scared at his appearance? Or was it something that
had been told to her, some secret accusation against himself? This
startled Sir Tom also a little, and it was with a sudden gravity, not
unmingled with resentment, that he added, "Come! I mean to know what it
is."

CHAPTER XI.

AN INNOCENT CONSPIRACY.

"It was only something that Jock was saying," said Lucy, "but, Tom, I
will tell you another time. I wish you had come in before Lady Randolph
went upstairs. I think she was a little disappointed to have only me."

"Did she share Jock's secret?" Sir Tom said with a keen look of inquiry.
It is perhaps one advantage in the dim light which fashion delights in,
that it is less easy to scrutinise the secrets of a face.

"We are all a little put wrong when you do not come in," said Lucy. The
cunning which weakness finds refuge in when it has to defend itself came
to her aid. "Jock is shy when you are not here. He thinks he bores Lady
Randolph; and so we ladies are left to our own devices."

"Jock must not be so sensitive," Sir Tom said; but he was not satisfied.
It occurred to him suddenly (for schoolboys are terrible gossips) that
the boy might have heard something which he had been repeating to Lucy.
Nothing could have been more unlikely, had he thought of it, than that
Jock should carry tales on such a subject. But we do not stop to argue
out matters when our own self-regard is in question. He looked at the
two with a doubtful and suspicious eye.

"He will get over it as he grows older," said Lucy; but she gave her
brother a look which to Sir Tom seemed one of warning, and he was
irritated by it; he looked from one to another and he laughed; but not
with the genial laugh which was his best known utterance.

"You are prodigiously on your guard," he said. "I suppose you have your
reasons for it. Have you been confiding the Masons' secret or something
of that awful character to her, Jock?"

"Why shouldn't I tell him?" cried Jock with great impatience. "What is
the use of making all those signs? It's nothing of the sort. It's only
I