o'clock to-morrow morning you will be ready to drive
with me to Plymouth, where doubtless I shall discover, from the Officer
Commanding, the promptest way of returning you to Dinan."

The Squire spoke slowly, resting his elbow on the library table and
shading his eyes with his palm, under which, however, they looked out with
fiery directness at Walter, standing upright before him.

The boy's face went white before his brain grasped the sentence.
His first sense was of utter helplessness, almost of betrayal.
From the day of his escape he had been conscious of a weak spot in his
story. To himself he could justify his conduct throughout; and by dint of
rehearsing over and over again the pros and contras, always as an advocate
for the defence, he had persuaded himself at times that every sensible
person must agree with him. What consideration, to begin with, could any
of the English _detenus_ owe to Bonaparte, who by seizing them had broken
the good faith between nations? Promises, again, are not unconditional;
they hold so long as he to whom they are given abides by his
counter-obligations, stated or implied. . . . Walter had a score of good
arguments to satisfy himself. Nevertheless he had felt that to satisfy
his father they would need to be well presented. He had counted on his
mother's help and Father Halloran's. Why, for the first time in his life,
had these two deserted him? Never in the same degree had he wanted their
protection. His mind groped in a void. He felt horribly alone.

And yet, while he sought for reasons against this sentence, he knew the
real reason to be that he could not face it. He hated suffering: a world
which demanded suffering of him was wholly detestable, irrational,
monstrous: he desired no more to do with it. What had he done to be used
so? He knew himself for a harmless fellow, wishing hurt to no man.
Then why on earth could he not be let alone? He had never asked to be
born: he had no wish to live at all, if living involved all this misery.
It had been bad enough in Dinan before his escape; but to tread back that
weary road in proclaimed dishonour, exposed to contemptuous eyes at every
halting-place, and to take up the burden again plus the shame--it was
unthinkable, and he came near to a hysterical laugh at the command.
He felt as a horse might feel when spurred up to a fence which it cannot
face and foresees it must refuse at the last moment.

"Return--return to Dinan?" he