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Rh Arminell shuddered. Jingles looked intently at her, and saw that she divined his thoughts.

"No," said he calmly: "never fear that I will have the story published to the world. It would bring disgrace on too many persons. It would make my mother's position now as the wife of Captain Saltren an equivocal one. To disclose the truth, whatever complexion the truth might be found to wear when examined, would cause incalculable misery. What I shall do, whither I shall turn, I cannot yet tell."

Arminell also had noticed the manner in which Lord Lamerton had spoken of the captain to the tutor as his father, and she also, with her preconceptions, thought it was pointedly so done.

"No," said Jingles. "I shall have to leave this house, and I shall let his lordship know that I am not as blind as he would wish me to be. But what I shall do is as yet undetermined. I shall ask you to help me to come to a decision."