he pretty
garden, and ventured at last to stand still and look about them. They
were in a narrow lane--high hedges shut it in at each side--they could
see very little way before or behind. But though they listened
anxiously, no sound but the twittering of the birds in the trees, and
the faint murmur of a little brook on the other side of hedge, was to be
heard.

"He can't be running after us, I don't fink," said Pamela, drawing a
deep breath.

"No," said Duke, but then he looked round disconsolately. "What can us
do?" he said. "Tim will never know to find us here."

"Tim is in prison," said Pamela, "It's no use us going back to meet him.
I know he's in prison."

"Then what can us do?" repeated Duke.

"Us must go home and ask Grandpapa to get poor Tim out of prison," said
Pamela.

"But, sister, how can us go home? _I_ don't know the way, do you?"

Pamela looked about her doubtfully.

"P'raps it isn't so very far," she said. "Us had better go on; and when
it's a long way from the policeman, us can ask somebody the road."

There seemed indeed nothing else to do. On they tramped for what seemed
to them an endless way, and still they were in the narrow lane with the
high hedges; so that, after walking for a very long time, they could
have fancied they were in the same place where they started. And as they
met no one they could not ask the way, even had they dared to do so. At
last--just as they were beginning to get very tired--the lane quite
suddenly came out on a short open bit of waste land, across which a
cart-track led to a wide well-kept road. And this, though they had no
idea of it, was actually the coach-road to Sandlingham; for--though, it
must be allowed, more by luck than good management--they had hit upon a
short cut to the highway, which if Tim had known of it would have saved
him all his present troubles!

For a moment or two Duke and Pamela felt cheered by having at last got
out of the weary lane. They ran eagerly across the short distance that
separated them from the road, with a vague idea that once on it they
would somehow or other see something--meet some one to guide them as to
what next to do. But it was not so--there it stretched before them,
white and smooth and dusty at both sides, rising a little to the right
and sloping downwards to the left--away, away, away--to where? Not a
cart or carriage of any kind--not a foot-passenger even--was to be seen.
And the sun was hot, and the four littl