“Serve you right!” cried Dick fiercely. “What do you come watching for? No one else saw, I’ll swear. You saw nobody come in, did you, Hopper?—nor you, Tom?”
Neither answered, and Dick grew more and more excited.
“I won’t have it!” he cried. “I’ll have the house cleared.”
“Without clearing your daughter’s name?” said Max, with a sneer.
“Clear my daughter’s name? It wants no clearing,” cried Dick angrily; and now his nervous, weak manner was thrown off, and he stood up proud and defiant. “Here, stop! You, Tom Fraser, and you, Hopper! I won’t have you go, if it comes to that.”
“I would rather go,” said Tom sadly, from the hall.
“But I say you shall not go.”
“Uncle,” said Tom—and he spoke in a low whisper—“let me go, for Heaven’s sake: I cannot bear it.”
“No,” said Dick sternly; “you shall not go till this has been set right. Do you, too, believe ill of my girl?”
“God forbid, uncle! I only wanted to know that my case was hopeless; and I have heard.”