"No, poor fellow! complaint would be of little use from him, as he knew. Is there a large chamber in the house unoccupied? one that would do for an invalid."
"The only large spare rooms in the house are the two given to you," replied Miss Diana. "They are the best, as you know, and have been kept vacant for visitors. The dressing-room may be used as a sitting-room."
"I don't want it as a sitting-room, or a dressing-room either," replied the Squire. "I prefer to dress in my bedroom, and there are sufficient sitting-rooms downstairs for me. Let this bed of Rupert's be carried down to that room at once."
"Who for?"
"For one who ought to have occupied the best rooms from the first—Rupert. Had he been properly treated, Diana, he would not have brought this disgrace upon himself."
Miss Diana wondered whether her ears deceived her. "For Rupert!" she repeated. "Where is Rupert? Is he found?"
"He has never been lost," was the curt rejoinder. "He has been all the time within a stone's throw—sheltered by Mark Canham, whom I shall not forget."
She could not speak from perplexity; scarcely knowing whether to believe the words or not.
"Your sister Edith—and James Chattaway may thank fortune that she is his wife, or I should visit the past in a very different manner upon him—and little Maude, and that handsome son of Tom Ryle's, have been in the secret; have visited him in private; stealthily doing for him what they could: but the fear and responsibility have well-nigh driven Edith and Maude to despair. That's where Rupert has been, Diana: where he is. I have not long come from him."
Anger blazed forth from the eyes of Miss Diana Trevlyn. "And why could not Edith have communicated the fact to me?" she cried. "I could have done for him better than they."