er against his memory on that one fact alone.

Walter would see to that all right. A little false evidence apparently
reluctantly given would be added, and all would be kneaded together into
the one substance till the whole guilt of all that happened would appear
to lie solely on his shoulders.

As for motive, it would simply be put forward that he had been in a
hurry to succeed his uncle. And very likely some tale of a quarrel with
his father or something of that sort would be invented, and would go
uncontradicted since there would be no one to contradict it.

And most probably what was contemplated at Wreste Abbey was no ordinary
burglary, but the assassination of old Lord Chobham, of which the guilt
would also be set down to him.

Very clearly now he realized that this tremendous plot was aimed, not
only at life, but at honour--that not only was his life required, but
also that he should be thought a murderer.

With the realization of the danger that threatened at Wreste Abbey he
turned and began to run back in the direction where it lay, that he
might take timely warning there, but he did not run a dozen strides when
he remembered Ella again, and paused.

Surely he must think of her first, alone and unprotected. For she was
the woman he loved; and besides, she had summoned him to her help, and
then she was a woman, and at least, the others were men.

All this flood of thoughts, this intuitive grasping of a situation
terrible beyond conception, almost unparalleled in bloody and dreadful
horror, passed through his mind with extreme rapidity.

Once more he turned and began to run--to run as he had never run before,
for now he saw that all depended on the speed with which he could cover
the eight miles that lay between him and Ottam's Wood, whether he could
still save his father or not.

The district was lonely in the extreme, there was no human habitation
near, no place where he could obtain any help or any swift means of
conveyance. His one hope must be in his speed, his feet must be swift to
save, not only his own life and his father's, but his honour, too, and
Ella and his old uncle as well; and all--all hung upon the speed with
which he could cover the eight long miles that lay between him and Brook
Bourne Spring in Ottam's Wood. Even as he ran, as he thought of Ella,
he came abruptly to a pause, wrung with sudden anguish. For each fleet
stride he was making towards Brook Bourne Spring was taking him
furt