r the ducks. I call it too bad, Godfrey, when I have
been trying so hard to keep you safe until we can hear that the soldiers
are gone. Now, I say, why don't you confide in me as you should? Don't
you believe in me?"

"Yes, thoroughly," said Godfrey, sadly, as he stretched out his hand in
Waller's direction, touched him on the arm, and began to slide his
fingers down till they touched his hand; but Waller shrank away.

"You don't trust me," he said, "and I shan't trust you."

"There, I'll confess all about it," said the lad, in a low, husky tone.
"I know now it was half-mad of me, but I couldn't bear the silence and
loneliness any more. I felt that I must go and breathe the fresh night
air somehow, and so I fastened the rope and slid down and went and had a
walk. It was after I had got back again," he continued hurriedly,
feeling too shamefaced to relate all the facts, "that I threw the rope
out of the window; and then you came up suddenly, and I felt so guilty
that I pretended I had gone to bed."

"Just like a naughty little boy who knew that he had done something
wrong," said Waller bitterly. "I wouldn't have believed that a young
fellow like you, almost a man, would have acted like a child."

"Don't be hard on me, Waller. You don't know what I suffered. You
can't think what it is to be a prisoner like this."

"No, and I can't think what made you act as you did. I can't understand
how you managed to climb up again. But why did you chuck the rope out
of the window? You couldn't have heard me coming then."

"No," said Godfrey; and then it all came out.

"Oh," said Waller, "of course that was a white owl; but it was just as I
told you. Old Joe does make a snoring sort of noise when he has been
walking fast or mowing, and he was prowling round before he went back to
the cottage, and looking to see if Bella had shut all the windows. He's
rather fond of catching her out in forgetting them, and then he comes
and tells tales, and they quarrel. Joe has got pretty sharp eyes, and
you must have sat there squat or else he'd have seen you. Well, I
suppose I must forgive you, but you had a very narrow escape. Do you
know what this means?"

"Yes; as you say, that you will forgive me, and we are going to be
friends again."

"Yes, but something more. That I must be up before daybreak, go to the
tool-house for a rake, and smooth over your footsteps in the long bed
under the windows, and after that, get up th