“Nothing as yet.”

“Nothing! while there is this blot on Archie’s name, and he is living in exile, and that Moy is revelling in prosperity.  Nothing!  Why don’t you publish it to every one?”

“My dear Jenny, I have only known it a week, and I have not been able to find out where Mr. Moy is.”

“What, to have him taken up?”

“Taken up, no; I don’t imagine he could be prosecuted after this length of time and on this kind of evidence.  No, to give him warning.”

“Warning?  To flee away, and never clear Archie!  What are you about, Julius?  He ought to be exposed at once, if he cannot be made to suffer otherwise.”

“Nay, Jenny, that would be hard measure.”

“Hard measure!” she interrupted; “what has my innocent Archie had?”

“Think of the old man, his wife and daughter, Jenny.”

“She’s a Proudfoot.—­And that girl the scandal of the country!  You want to sacrifice Archie to them, Julius?”

“You are tired and shaken, Jenny, or you would see that all I want to do is to act with common consideration and honour.”

She interrupted again.  “What honour do you mean?  You are not making it a secret of the confessional?”

“You are misunderstanding me, Joanna,” Julius gently said.  “Herbert’s vigil spared me from that difficulty, but—­”

“Then you would have sacrificed Archie to this imaginary—­”

“Hush, Jenny!  I fear he is wandering again.  Alas! it is the sad old refrain!”

As they came to the door together, Herbert’s voice, under that strange change which wandering brings, was heard muttering, “Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward.”  And Mrs. Cranstoun received them, with her head shaking, and tearful eyes.  “It has come on again, sir; I was afraid it would be too much for him.”

Herbert’s prayer had been granted, inasmuch as the horrible ravings that he feared repeating never passed his lips.  If he had gone down to the smoke of Tartarus to restore his sister’s lover, none of its blacks were cleaning to him; but whether conscious or wandering, the one thought of his wasted year seemed to be crushing him.  It was a curious contrast between poor Mr. Fuller’s absence of regret for a quarter of a century’s supineness, and this lad’s repentance for twelve months’ idleness.  That his follies had been guileless in themselves might be the very cause that his spirit had such power of repentance.  His admiration of Lady Tyrrell had been burnt out, and had been fancy, not heart, and no word of it passed his lips, far less of the mirth with the Strangeways.  Habit sometimes brought the phrases of the cricket-field, but these generally ended in a shudder of self-recollection and prayer.