"Maude, my child, what is it? I like your face, my dear, and must have you henceforth for my very own child!"
"Not me, Uncle Rupert, never mind me," she said, the kindly tones telling upon her breaking heart and bringing forth a gush of tears. "If you will only love Rupert!—only get Mr. Chattaway to forgive him!"
"But he may be dead, child."
"Uncle Rupert, if he were not dead—if you found him now, to-day," she reiterated—"would you deliver him up to justice? Oh, don't blame him; don't visit it upon him! It was the Trevlyn temper, and Mr. Chattaway should not have provoked it by horsewhipping him."
"I blame him! I deliver a Trevlyn up to justice!" echoed Squire Trevlyn, with a threatening touch of the Trevlyn temper at that very moment. "What are you saying, child? If Rupert is in life he shall have his wrongs righted from henceforth. The cost of a burnt rick? The ricks were mine, not Chattaway's. Rupert Trevlyn is my heir, and he shall so be recognised and received."
She sank down before him crying softly with the relief his words brought her. Squire Trevlyn placed his hand on her pretty hair, caressingly. "Don't grieve so, child; he may not be dead. I'll find him if he is to be found. The police shall know they have a Squire Trevlyn amongst them again."
"Uncle Rupert, he is very near; lying in concealment—ill—almost dying. We have not dared to betray it, and the secret is nearly killing us."
He listened in amazement, and questioned her until he gathered the outlines of the case. "Who has known of this, do you say?"
"My aunt Edith, and I, and the doctor; and—and—George Ryle."
The consciousness with which the last name was brought out, the sudden blush, whispered a tale to keen Squire Trevlyn.