He hesitated, suddenly remembering that John North had been a frequent guest at Idle Hour.

“I had heard that Mr. North was wanted as a witness,” observed the general.

“No, they say Moxlow had his eye on him from the start!” rejoined the foreman with repressed enthusiasm for Moxlow.

The general sensed the enthusiasm and was affected unpleasantly by it.

“It would be a great pity if Mr. Moxlow should be so unfortunate as to make a fool of himself!” he commented with unusual acidity.  “What else did you hear?”

“Not much, General, only just what I’ve told you—­that they’ve arrested North, and that young Watt Harbison’s been trying to get him out on bail, but they’ve refused to accept bond in his case.  Don’t that look like they thought the evidence was pretty strong against him—­”

“Well, they, might have arrested you or me,” said the general.  “That signifies nothing.”

He moved off in the direction of the house, and Thompson, after a backward glance at his retreating figure, entered the barn.  Out of sight of his foreman, the general’s sturdy pace lagged.  That young man had been at Idle Hour entirely too often; he had thought so all along, and now he was very sure of it!

“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.

“If North is innocent—­” began the general.

“Father!” She regarded him with a look of horror and astonishment.  “You don’t like him!  It’s that, isn’t it?” she added after a moment’s silence.

“I don’t like any one who gets into a scrape such as this!” replied the general with miserable and unnecessary heat.

“But it wasn’t his fault—­he couldn’t help it!”