And she tried to rise:  but Valencia held her down, while she entreated piteously—­

“I will go, and see about finding him!” she said at last as her only resource.  “Promise me to be quiet here, and I will.”

“Quiet?  Yes! quiet here!” and she threw herself upon her face on the floor.

She looked up eagerly.  “You will not tell Scoutbush?”

“Why not?”

“He is so—­so hasty.  He will kill him!  Valencia, he will kill him!  Promise me not to tell him, or I shall go mad!” And she sat up again, pressing her hands upon her head, and rocking from side to side.

“Oh, Valencia, if I dared only scream! but keeping it in kills me.  It is like a sword through my brain now!”

“Let me call Clara.”

“No, no! not Clara.  Do not tell her, I will be quiet; indeed I will; only come back soon, soon; for I am all alone, alone!” And she threw herself down again upon her face.

Valencia went out.  Certain as she was of her sister’s innocence, there was one terrible question in her heart which must be answered, or her belief in all truth, goodness, religion, would reel and rock to its very foundations.  And till she had an answer to that, she could not sit still by Lucia.

She walked hurriedly, with compressed lips, but quivering limbs, down stairs, and into the sitting-room.  Scoutbush was gone to bed.  Campbell and Mellot sat chatting still.

“Where is my brother?”

“Gone to bed, as some one else ought to be; for it is past twelve.  Is Vavasour come in yet?”

“No.”

“Very odd,” said Claude; “I never saw him after I left you.”

“He said certainly that he was going to find you,” said Campbell.

“There is no need for speculating,” said Valencia quietly; “my sister has a note from Mr. Vavasour at Pen-y-gwryd.”

“Pen-y-gwryd?” cried both men at once.

“Yes.  Major Campbell, I wish to show it to you.”

Valencia’s tone and manner was significant enough to make Claude Mellot bid them both good-night.

When he had shut the door behind him, Valencia put the letter into the
Major’s hand.

He was too much absorbed in it to look up at her; but if he had done so, he would have been startled by the fearful capacity of passion which changed, for the moment, that gay Queen Whims into a terrible Roxana, as she stood, leaning against the mantelpiece, but drawn up to her full height, her lips tight shut, eyes which gazed through and through him in awful scrutiny, holding her very breath, while a nervous clutching of the little hand said, “If you have tampered with my sister’s heart, better for you that you were dead!”

He read it through, once, twice, with livid face; then clashed it on the floor.

“Fool!—­cur!—­liar!—­she is as pure as God’s sunlight.”

“You need not tell me that,” said Valencia, through her closed teeth.