"An accident!" exclaimed the duke, staring at him. "Tumbled in the sea! How did you manage that, in the name of goodness?"
Yorke got red, and looked very much like an impatient schoolboy caught playing truant or breaking windows.
"What's it matter!" he said. "Fell off breakwater. Go and get the cigars, Grey; I'll look after his——."
The duke cut in quickly before the word "grace."
"Nothing of the sort," he said. "You get home and change your things. Fell off the breakwater!" He stared at him incredulously.
Mr. Lisle, too, gazed at him with blank astonishment, as if he were surprised to find that it was a man and not a little boy in knickerbockers, who might not unnaturally be expected to tumble off the breakwater.
Leslie meanwhile stood with downcast eyes, then suddenly she said, addressing her father and carefully avoiding the other two:
"This gentleman swam in to save Dick, papa; that is why he is wet."
The duke scanned her face keenly, and smiled curiously.
"That sounds more probable than your account, Yorke. It is a strange thing," he turned his head to Lisle, "that a man is more often ashamed of committing a good or generous action than a bad one. How do you account for it?"