"He thought!..."
There was a world of bitter contempt in those two words she uttered. Even Philip, absorbed as he was in his own affairs, could not fail to notice it.
"Challoner has always been my friend," he said almost reproachfully. "I fancy, little sister," he added with his boyish smile, "that it rests with you that he should become my brother."
"Hush, dear, don't speak of that."
"Why not?"
She did not reply, and there was a moment's silence between them. She was evidently hesitating whether to tell him of the fears, the suspicions which the mention of Sir Humphrey Challoner's name had aroused in her heart, or to leave the subject alone. At last she said quite gently,—
"But when I came home, dear, and found you had left the Hall without a message, without a word for me, why did you not tell me then?"
The boy hung his head. He felt the tender reproach, and there was nothing to be said.
"I would have stood by you," she continued softly. "I think I might have helped you. There was no disgrace in refusing to join a doomed cause, and you were a mere child when you made friends with Lovat."
"I know all that now, dear," he said with some impatience. "Heaven knows I am paying dearly enough for my cowardice and my folly. But even now I cannot understand how my name became mixed up with those of the rebels. Somebody must have sworn false information against me. But who? I haven't an enemy in the world, have I, dear?"