wild talk of a
revengeful ill-doer."

Railsford laughed a short uneasy laugh. Had the doctor worded the
question in slightly different form, it might have been difficult to
answer it as decisively as he could now.

"It is; and if he were here to hear me I would say that it is as
absolutely and wickedly false as emphatically as I say it to you, sir.
I am sorry indeed that you should have thought it necessary to put the
question."

"There is never anything lost," said the doctor drily, "by giving the
calumniated person an opportunity of denying a charge of this sort,
however preposterous. I am myself perfectly satisfied to take your word
that you neither had any part in the affair yourself nor have you any
knowledge as to who the culprits are."

Railsford coloured and bit his lips. The doctor had now put the
question in the very form which he had dreaded. If he could only have
held his peace the matter would be at an end, perhaps never to revive
again. But could he, an honest man, hold his peace?

"Excuse me," said he, in undisguised confusion; "what I said was that
the imputation that I had anything to do with the outrage myself was
utterly and entirely false."

"Which," said the doctor incisively, "is tantamount to admitting that
the imputation that you are sheltering the real culprits is well-
founded."

"At the risk of being grievously misunderstood, Doctor Ponsford,"
replied Railsford slowly and nervously, yet firmly, "I must decline to
answer that question."

"Very well, sir," said the doctor briskly; "this conversation is at an
end--for the present."

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

"AFTER YOU."

Thanks to youth and strong constitutions, Arthur and Dig escaped any
very serious consequences from their night's exposure at Wellham Abbey.
They slept like dormice from eight in the morning to six in the
afternoon, and woke desperately hungry, with shocking colds in their
heads, and with no inclination whatever to get up and prepare their work
for the following day. The doctor came and felt their pulses, and
looked at their tongues, and listened to their coughs and sneezes, and
said they were well out of it. Still, as they assured him with loud
catarrhic emphasis that they felt rather bad still, and very shaky, he
gave them leave to remain in bed for the rest of the day, and petrified
them where they lay by the suggestion of a mustard poultice a-piece.
They protested solemnly that the malady from which t