es, and already they had passed cottages
standing separately in their gardens and a little to the right was a
church with a high steeple. Had they gone straight on they would soon
have found themselves in Monkhaven High Street, where, at this moment,
Tim was shut up in the police office. But after wandering on a little
way they got frightened, for no Tim was to be seen, and they stood still
and looked at each other.

"P'raps this isn't the way he went after all," said Pamela. They had
already passed a road to the left, which also led into the town, though
less directly.

"He _might_ have gone that way," said Duke, pointing back to this other
road; "let's go a little way along there and look."

Pamela made no objection. The side road turned out more attractive, for
a little way from the corner stood a pretty white house in a really
lovely garden. It reminded them of their own home, and they stood at the
gates peeping in, admiring the flower-beds and the nicely-kept lawn and
smooth gravel paths, for the moment forgetting all about where they were
and what had become of their only protector.

Suddenly, however, they were rudely brought back to the present and to
the fears of the morning, for from where they were they caught sight of
a burly blue-coated figure making his way to the front door from a side
gate by which he had entered the garden; for this pretty house was no
other than Squire Bartlemore's, and the tall figure was that of
Superintendent Boyds. He could not possibly have seen them--they were
very tiny, and the bushes as well as the railings hid them from the view
of any one not quite close to the gates. But they saw _him_--that was
enough, and more than enough.

"He's caught Tim and put him in prison," said Pamela, and in a
terror-stricken whisper, "and now he's coming for _us_, bruvver;" and
bruvver, quite as frightened as she, did not attempt to reassure her.
Too terrified to see that the policeman was not coming their way at all,
but was quietly striding on towards the house, they caught each other
again by the hand and turned to fly. And fly they did--one could
scarcely have believed such tiny creatures could run so fast and so far.
They did not look which way they went--only that it was in the other
direction from whence they had come. They ran and ran--then stopped to
take breath and glance timidly behind them, and without speaking ran on
again--till they had left quite half a mile between them and t