ce choked with sobs.

'What do you mean?' asked Alick heavily; and he stared down at the
crouching speaker.

'Miss Theedory telled I to mend the leak,' moaned Ned. 'And she
thought I'd done it, I expec', for she showed how 'twas to be mended;
but I knowed how as well as she did, for I've seed a-many done. But I
put off the doin' of it to go to Brattlesby Woods along with you,
Muster Alick, and Jerry Blunt, an' I deceived her; an' now she's
drowned, Miss Theedory is! Leastways, 'tis the same thing; for all
Northbourne's a-sayin' as she's bound to die of it all!' The boy,
burying his head, broke down into a loud, irrepressible fit of crying.

Ned too! Alick's lips quivered as he turned abruptly away. He himself
it was who tempted Ned away, and caused the boy to neglect his duty,
bringing down all this misfortune. He had been thinking himself the
only person in fault for being wilfully absent, but it was worse and
worse! He had lured away, and placed another in the same position, so
wide-spreading can a single evil step be in its results. Even through
his sinking fears about Theo, Alick could not but feel pathetically
sorry for poor Ned, whose grief grew wilder in its abandon after his
confession was out.

'Have you told any one about not mending the leak, Ned? Does my father
know?' he came back to Ned's side to ask anxiously.

'I dussn't!' was the choking reply. 'But I feels bound, somehow, to
tell you,' he added. 'If Miss Theedory dies, 'twill be me as did it;
an' you can tell 'em all so, if you like! They'll put me in gaol, o'
course; p'raps they'll hang me. They may bring it in manslaughter. I
dunno what they haven't the power to do!' ended Ned desperately.

Alick stared through the window out to sea, with an equally woebegone
face with that of his companion in misery. Two more unhappy boys one
could not have well beheld. And this grievous state of affairs had
revengefully trodden on the heels of the delightfully fascinating
expedition to the woods, which had been forbidden to the one boy, and
which the other boy had shirked his duty to join in!

'What would be the end of it all?' Alick dully asked himself.

'Ned,' he said aloud, and there was a passionate ring of regret in his
voice, 'it wasn't worth it!'

'No, muster, it warn't!' assented Ned, fully understanding that Alick
would have given his right hand to have put back the clock of time,
that he might again have the chance of apologising