"This comes of being too kind," he muttered.

Then he paused suddenly--but no, that was absurd--utterly absurd;
Elizabeth would have told him! He was certain of this, for had she not
told him all her secrets? But suppose--suppose--and again he put the
idea from him.

He found Elizabeth in the small, daintily furnished sitting-room which
Mrs. Herbert had called her "boudoir", and seated himself, none too
gently, in a fragile gilt chair which his bulk of bone and muscle
threatened to wreck. Elizabeth glanced up from _Their Wedding Journey_,
which she was reading for the second time.

"What is it, father?" she asked, for his feeling of doubt and annoyance
was plainly shown in his expressive face.

"Thompson has just come out from town--he says that John North has been
arrested for the McBride murder--"

The book slipped from Elizabeth's hand and fell to the floor; the smile
with which she had welcomed her father faded from her lips; she gazed at
him with pale face and wide eyes. The general instantly regretted that
he had spoken with such cruel abruptness.

"You don't think it is true?" she asked in a whisper.

"Thompson seemed to know what he was talking about."

"It's monstrous!" she cried.