Neither followed him, and Stephen did not even call after him “not to linger in the hall, running the risk of being seen,” but turned at once to Helen, who sat brooding and puzzled.

“Helen,” Pryde said earnestly, “you must help me persuade him to go at once.”

“I can’t do that, Stephen,” the girl replied slowly.

“But it’s madness for him to stay here.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Helen said, shaking her head. “I have the same feeling that he has—exactly the same feeling.”

“Helen, be sensible!” he begged roughly. “Look things in the face! What evidence could there be here that would help you?”

“I can’t answer that,” she replied musingly, “at least not yet. All I know is that this is our one chance.”

“Our one chance?”

“Yes—Hugh’s and mine.”

Stephen Pryde winced. Hers and Hugh’s! They two linked by her, and always. “Yours and Hugh’s,” he said acidly. “Yes, but, Helen, aren’t you forgetting?”

“Forgetting what?”

“Your father’s wishes.”

“Oh,” she returned impatiently, “that was when he believed Hugh guilty; if he proves his innocence——”

“He hasn’t proved it yet,” Stephen broke in viciously.

“But he will,” she said firmly. “Stephen, I am sure he will. You—you wouldn’t wish to stand between us then?”

“Don’t you understand, Helen,” Pryde retorted, “that this is just what your father wanted to save you from? He realized that, if you ever came under Hugh’s influence again, he would make you believe in him.”

“Then you don’t believe in him?” She spoke coldly, and she was fully alert now.

“God knows I wish I could.”

“Stephen!” she cried, rising indignantly, recoiling from him in amazement.

“But I can’t,” Pryde added doggedly. He was furious now.

“Well, I can and do,” the girl said icily. “And I am going to stand by him, no matter what happens. I know he is innocent. But if he were guilty, a thousand times guilty, it would make no difference to me, none at all in my love. I’d only care for him the more, stand by him the more, and for ever and ever.”

The fierce color rushed to Pryde’s face, and his hands knotted together in pain.

“Helen,” he pled, “you are making things very difficult for me.”

“I am sorry, Stephen,” she said a little perfunctorily; “but I love Hugh,” she added proudly. “He is all I have in the world.”

“You don’t understand,” he retorted sternly. “I promised your father to take care of you. I mean to keep that promise.”

“No, I do not understand,” Helen said haughtily. She, too, was infuriated now.

“You must send Hugh away at once,” Stephen told her abruptly.

“Must? Do you think to force me to do as you wish?”

“Yes.”

She had spoken insolently, and he was white to his lips. He loved her, all his life he had loved her; and she knew it. An older woman would have spared him a little, because of that love, because of his pain. Helen hit him again. She went a step nearer, and laughed in his face—a taunting laugh of scorn and dislike.

There was a bitter pause, and then Stephen spoke more carefully, groping to retrieve somewhat the ground his passion had lost.

“You don’t seem to realize that Hugh is in a very dangerous position. If—if some one should inform the authorities of his whereabouts——”

“Inform the authorities?” she repeated his words wonderingly. He had not meant to say them, and already regretted them. He bit his lip. Suddenly their meaning dawned on her.

“Stephen,” her voice was stiff with horror, horror of him, not fear for Hugh. “You wouldn’t do that?”

“I!” he said thickly. “I—no—no—no.”

“I’d hate you, if you did that,” Helen said quietly. Pryde realized how much too far he had gone. He owed his place in the world to this girl’s favor, his hope, still ardent, to fulfill the dreams he had dreamt as a boy, watching the birds; he could not afford to incur her enmity. If love was lost, ambition remained. Fool, fool that he was to imperil that too. He changed his tone, and said shiftily—

“No—no—you misunderstand me—of course I wouldn’t.”

“It would disgrace Hugh,” she persisted hotly; “ruin his whole life, just when he has fought his way up again.”

“But don’t you see,” Stephen urged eagerly, taking quick advantage of the opening her words gave, “that is just what I am trying to prevent? If he is caught, he is certain to be disgraced. The whole truth about the theft would have to come out. That is why I want him to go from here quickly. It’s for his sake—to save him. I’m thinking of him, only of him.”

At the word “theft,” Helen threw her head up haughtily. But Stephen Pryde was almost past picking his words now. On the whole, though, he was playing his part well, his cards shrewdly. His last words rang true, whatever they in fact were; and Helen was not unimpressed. Incredible as it may seem, Pryde’s affection for his brother was not dead, and at sight of Hugh, for all the dilemma with which Hugh’s reappearance threatened him, that old-time affection had leapt in the older man’s guilt-heavy heart. And it was that, probably, that had given some warmth of truth to his last words, some semblance of conviction to Helen.

But she stood her ground. “He can’t go—until he has made his search,” she said with quiet finality. “His only chance of proving his innocence is through that.”

“But that’s absurd,” Pryde disputed impatiently. “What evidence could he find here?”

“I don’t know yet,” Helen admitted. “But I am sure there is something.”

“Sure? Why are you so sure?” He spoke eagerly, all his uneasiness rekindled at her confident words, the poor thief in him fearing each syllable an officer.

His cousin thought a little, and then she answered him, and more kindly.

“Stephen, I haven’t been quite frank with you, because I know you don’t believe what I believe, but I must tell you the truth now.”

“Well?” he said breathlessly.

“Hugh and I have both had a message from Daddy, telling us that the proof that would clear him is in this room.”

“A message—a message from your father?” His agitation was increasing, but he did his utmost to conquer it.

“Yes,” Helen replied gravely.

“He left you—he left you letters?” Pryde’s voice was thick with terror. Few as his words were, he spoke them with difficulty.

“No!” Helen shook her head.

“Then how”—his voice trembled and so did his hands—“how did the message come?”

“It only came lately—from the other side.”

“From the other side?” Stephen asked blankly.

Helen nodded. For a moment he looked at her in utter perplexity, and then a light broke faintly.

“Oh!” he said incredulously. “You—you mean the messages came from a dead man?”

“Yes,” Helen said assuredly.

Pryde’s relief was so great that he could scarcely control it or himself. He felt faint and sick with elation, and presently he broke into hysterical laughter. It was the second time he had laughed so in this room.

Helen regarded him offendedly. Indeed, feeling as she felt, and at stake what she had at stake, his mirth was offensive. But the boisterous merriment was his safety-valve.

When he was able to check himself, and he did as soon as he could, he said, more affectionately than superiorly,

“Helen, surely you can’t be serious?”

“I am,” she answered curtly. She was indignant.

“But,” Stephen persisted, “you can’t believe such preposterous nonsense. A message from the dead! It’s too absurd!”

“You will see that it is not,” the girl told him coldly.

“I shall have to wait a long time for that, I am afraid,” he returned patronizingly. He was quite himself now. He rose carelessly and strolled to the writing-table. But as he went the menace that still threatened him reasserted itself in his mind. He turned again to Helen. “And this message from the dead, as you call it, is your only reason for believing that there was some evidence in this room that would clear Hugh?”

“Yes.” She vouchsafed the word inimically.

Pryde drew a long breath of relief, and turned from her vexed face. As he turned, his eye fell again on the writing-table and traveled, as before, from it to the fireplace. He stood musing, and presently, scarcely conscious of what he was saying, said—

“And for a time you quite impressed me. I thought you had found out about——” He broke off abruptly, realizing with a frightened start that he had been on the verge of a damning admission. His great relief had weakened his masterly defense—made him careless.

Helen regarded him curiously. “About what?” she said.

“Why, about—about this evidence,” he replied, laughing lightly. He was well on his guard again.

“Don’t make fun of me, Stephen,” she said, rising. “You hurt me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. “I didn’t mean to do that. Where are you going?” he added, as she reached the door.

“I am going to Hugh,” she said quietly, without halting or looking toward him. And he neither dared stay her nor follow her.

Alone in the fateful room, Stephen Pryde moved about it restlessly.

He lit a cigarette, but after a few whiffs he tossed it to the fire. Suddenly he looked apprehensively over his shoulder. He was shivering with cold. He walked about uncomfortably. “A message from the dead,” he said aloud, contempt, amusement, and dread blended in his voice. “A message from the dead.” He went hurriedly to the side table where the decanters stood and mixed himself a drink. He carried his glass to the fireplace, as if for warmth, and drank, looking down at the flames. Suddenly he swung round with a cry of horror. “Uncle Dick!” The thin glass fell and shivered into a dozen fragments on the hearth. “Who’s there?” he cried, twitching convulsively. “Who’s there?” And with a distraught moan, he sank cowering into the chair from which Richard Bransby had risen to die.

THE LIGHT