But he will be acquitted, you will see."

She let him press her fingers to his lips again, and made no outward sign; but the two looked into each other's eyes, and each was conscious of the presence of a deadly fear.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

A VAIN APPEAL.

Lesley went home to sleep, and learned from her aunt the details of her father's arrest. "But he will be back in a few hours," said Miss Brooke, obstinately. "They will be obliged to let him ago. They will accept bail, of course. Mr. Kenyon thinks they will."

"Has Mr. Kenyon been here?"

"Oh, yes; he brought me a message from Caspar. What a horrible thing it is! But the ridiculous--absurd--part of it is that your father should be accused. Why, your father was very friendly with Oliver Trent--at least he used to be!" Then Miss Brooke paused, and fired an unexpected question at her niece. "Have you any reason to think he was not?"

Lesley winced and hesitated. "I don't think he liked Mr. Trent very much," she said, at last; "but that is a different thing----"

"From killing him? I should think so!" said Doctor Sophy, in a high tone of voice. She was in her dressing-gown, and sitting before the fire that had been lighted in her own little sanctum upstairs; but she was not smoking as she was usually at that hour. The occasion was too serious for cigarettes: Doctor Sophy was denying herself. Perhaps that was the reason why she looked so haggard and so angry, as she turned suddenly and spoke to her niece in a somewhat excited way.

"What made him unfriendly? Do you not know? It was because you flirted with Oliver Trent! I really think you did, Lesley. And I know your father thought so too."

"Then he ought to have been vexed with me, not with Oliver," said Lesley, standing her ground, but turning very pale.

"Yes, yes, but you are a girl, and he did not like to blame you. He spoke rather strongly about Oliver Trent to me. However, it is no use saying so now. We had better keep that phase of the matter as quiet as we can."

"Aunt Sophy," said Lesley, in a tremulous tone, "you don't mean--you don't think--that my--my _flirting_, as you call it, with Mr. Trent will be spoken of and tend to hurt my father--my father's good name?"

Aunt Sophy stared at her. "Of course it would hurt your father's chances if it _were_ talked about," she said, rather, sharply. "I don't see how it could do otherwise. People would say that he might have quarrelled with Oliver about you, you know. But we must try to keep the matter as quiet as we can. _I'm_ prepared to swear that they were bosom-friends, and that I never heard Caspar say a word against him; and you had better follow my example."

"But, Aunt Sophy--if I can't----"

"If you want to come the Jeanie Deans' business, my dear," said Miss Brooke, "you had better reflect that personal application to the Queen for a pardon will not help you very much now-a-days. I must confess that, although I admire Jeanie Deans very much, I don't intend to emulate her. It's my opinion too that most women will tell lies for the sake of men they love, but not for the sake of women."

"Oh, Aunt Sophy!"

"It is no good making exclamations," said Aunt Sophy, with unusual irritability. "If you are different from all other women, I can't help it. I once thought that I was different myself, but I find I am as great a fool as any of them. There, go to bed, child! Things will turn out all right by and by. n.o.body could be so absurd as to believe ill of your father."

"You think it will be all right?" said Lesley, wistfully.

"Don't ask me to believe in a G.o.d in heaven, if things go badly with Caspar," said Miss Brooke, curtly. "Haven't I lived ten years in the house with the man, and don't I know that he would not hurt a fly? He's the gentlest soul alive, although he looks so big and strong: the gentlest, softest-hearted, most generous----But I suppose it is no good saying all that to your mother's daughter?"--and Miss Brooke picked up a paper-covered volume that had fallen to her feet, and began to read.

"I am my father's daughter too," said Lesley, with rather tremulous dignity, as she turned away. She was too indignant with Miss Brooke to wish her good-night, and meant to leave the room without another word.

But Miss Brooke, dropping her book on her red flannel lap, and looking uneasily over her shoulder at her niece's retreating figure, would not let her go.

"Come, Lesley, don't be angry," she said. "I am so upset that I hardly know what I am saying. Come here and kiss me, child, I did not mean to vex you."

And Lesley came back and kissed her aunt, but in silence, for her heart was sore within her. Was it perhaps true--or partially true--that she had been the cause of the misery that had come upon them all? Indirectly and partially, unintentionally and without consciousness of wrong-doing--and yet she could not altogether acquit herself of blame.

Had she been more reserved, more guarded in her behavior, Oliver Trent would never have fallen in love with her. Would this have mended matters? If, as she gathered, the sole reason of her father's visit to the Trents had been to a.s.sure himself of the true nature of her relations with Oliver--her cheeks burned as she put the matter in that light, even to herself--why, then, she could not possibly divest herself of responsibility. Of course she could not for one moment imagine that her father had lifted his hand against Oliver; but his visit to the house shortly before the murder gave a certain air of plausibility to the tale: and for this Lesley felt herself to blame.

She went to her own room and lay down, but she could not sleep. There was a hidden joy at the bottom of her heart--a joy of which she was half ashamed. The relief of finding that Maurice was still her friend--it was so that she phrased it to herself--was indeed very great. And there was a strange and beautiful hope for the future, which she dared not look at yet. For it seemed to her as if it would be a sort of treason to dream of love and joy and hope for herself when those that she loved best--and she herself also--were involved in one common downfall, one common misfortune of so terrible a kind. The thought of her father--detained, she knew not where: she had a childish vision of a felon's cell, very different indeed from the reality of the plain but fairly comfortable room with which Mr. Caspar Brooke had been accommodated, and she shuddered at the thought of the days before him, of the public examinations, of the doubt and shame and mystery in which poor Oliver Trent's death was enwrapped. She thought of Ethel, now under the influence of a strong narcotic, from which she would not awake until the morning; and she shrank in imagination from that awakening to despair.

And she thought of others who were more or less concerned in the tragedy; of Mary Kingston--though she could not remember her without a shudder--of Mrs. Romaine, who had loved her brother so tenderly; and of Lady Alice, the woman whose husband was in prison for a crime of which Lesley was willing to swear that he was innocent.

When her thoughts once reached her mother, they stayed and would not be diverted. She could not sleep: she could think of nothing but the mother and the father whom she loved. And she wept over the failure of her schemes for their reunion. All hope of that was at an end. It was impossible that Lady Alice should not believe him guilty. She had always judged him harshly, and taken the worst possible view of his behavior.

Lesley remembered that she had not--in common parlance--"had a good word to say for him," when she spoke of him in the convent parlor. What would she say now, and how could Lesley make her see the truth?

The fruit of her reflections became evident at breakfast-time next morning. Lesley came downstairs with her hat on and a mantle over her arm.

"Where are you going?" Miss Brooke asked. "Not to poor Ethel, I hope? I am very sorry for her, but really, Lesley----"

"I am going to mamma," said Lesley.

"Going to----Well, upon my word! Lesley, I did think you had a little more feeling for your father! Going----Well, I shall not countenance it.

I shall not let your boxes go out of the house. It is simply disgraceful."

"But I don't want my boxes," said Lesley, rather forlornly helping herself to a cup of coffee. "What have my boxes to do with it, Aunt Sophy? I shall be back in an hour. Mr. Kenyon said we should be able to see father to-day, and I do not want to be away when he comes."

"Then--then you don't mean to _stay_ with your mamma?" gasped Aunt Sophy.

Lesley could not help a little laugh, but the tears came into her brown eyes as she laughed. "Would you mind very much if I did, Aunt Sophy?"

she asked, setting down her cup of coffee.

"I should mind for this reason," said Miss Brooke, stoutly, "that if you ran away from your father's house now, people would say that you thought him guilty. It would go against him terribly. Sooner than that, I would lock you into your own room and prevent your going by main force."

"I believe you would," said Lesley, "and so would I, in your place, Aunt Sophy. But you need not be afraid. I am as proud of my father and as full of faith in him as even you can be; and if I go to see my mother, it is only that I may tell her so, and let her understand that she has no cause to be afraid for him." The color came to her face as she spoke, and she lifted her head so proudly that Aunt Sophy felt--for a moment or two--slightly abashed.

"I will be back in an hour," Lesley went on, firmly, "and I hope that Mr. Kenyon will wait for me if he comes before I return."

"Am I to tell him where you have gone?" asked Miss Brooke, with a slight touch of sharpness in her voice.

And Lesley replied, "Certainly. And my father, too, if you see him before I do. I am not doing anything wrong."

Greatly to her surprise, Miss Brooke got up and kissed her. "My dear,"

she said, "you are very like your father, and I am sure you won't do anything to hurt his feelings; but are you quite sure that you need go to Lady Alice just at present?"

"Quite sure, Aunt Sophy." And then Miss Brooke sighed, shook her head, and let her go, with the air of one who sees a person undertake a hopeless quest. For she fancied that Lesley was going to make an attempt to reconcile the husband and wife who had been so long separated, and she did not believe that any such attempt was likely to succeed. But she had not fathomed Lesley's plan aright.

The girl took a hansom and drove at once to her mother's house. She knew well where it was situated, but she had never visited it before. It was a small house, but in a good position, close to the Green Park, and at any other moment Lesley would have been struck by the air of distinction that it had already achieved. It was painted differently from the neighboring houses: the curtains and flower-boxes in the windows were remarkably fresh and dainty, the neat maid who opened the front door was neater and smarter than other people's maids. Lesley was informed that her ladyship was not up yet; and the servant seemed to think that she had better go away on receiving this information.

"I will come in," said Lesley, quietly. "I am Miss Brooke. You can take my name up to her first, if you like, but I want to see her at once."

The maid looked doubtful, but at this moment Mrs. Dayman was seen crossing the hall, and her exclamation of mingled pleasure and dismay caused Lesley to be admitted without further parley.

Lady Alice was up, but not fully dressed; she was breakfasting in a dressing-room or boudoir, which opened out of her own sleeping apartment. As soon as Lesley entered she started up; and the girl noticed at the first glance that her mother was looking ill, but perhaps the richly-tinted plush morning-gown, that fell round her slender figure in long straight folds, made her look taller and thinner than usual.

Certainly her face was worn, and her eyelids were reddened as if from weeping or sleeplessness.

"Lesley! my darling! have you come back to me?"