thing he will say will be,
`Where is Waller?'"

The next minute the boy was trotting steadily back towards the Manor,
trusting more to instinct than to sight in avoiding the trees.

"And I never said good-bye!" he kept on muttering. "I never said
good-bye!"

Then all at once he stopped short, panting hard, partly from exertion,
partly from excitement, for the thought came strong upon him now of his
father.

"He will ask me," he panted, "where I have been; and what am I to say?"

An end to the boy's musings was put by the returning post-chaise, whose
wheels he heard far ahead, and as soon as it had passed he hurried on
along the road; but before he had gone far he took to cover again, for
voices were approaching him in the darkness, one of which, loud and
threatening, Waller recognised at once as that of the sergeant in
command of the search-party.

He was talking in a menacing tone, and the reply came in a husky,
petulant voice, plainly that of the village constable, while directly
after there was a chorus of laughter.

Waller shrank farther back amongst the trees, and stood thinking much of
his friend's escape, of this second fruitless mission of the soldiery,
but, above all, of that which was before him, for, as he hurried on,
there, straight before him, his father's stern countenance seemed to
rise out of the darkness to look at him with questioning eyes.

The rest of the journey back he saw nothing, heard nothing, thought of
nothing, but that stern, questioning face. In fact, later on it seemed
to the lad as if there had been a blank until he found himself standing
in the well-lit dining-room, listening to his father's words.

These were very few, the principal being comprised in the question, very
shortly and sharply uttered--

"Well, Waller, my boy, where have you been?"

The next minute the tired traveller was sitting back in the big
armchair, his brow resting upon one hand, which shaded his face from the
young speaker, who slowly, and without a moment's hesitation, spoke out
frankly and related all that has been told here.

"Well," said the Squire, as his son ended his narrative, "I am a
magistrate, my boy, and it would have been my duty if I had been here to
give up that lad to those who sought him. I was not here, and you acted
upon the promptings of your own breast. Well, my boy, I have had a long
and slow journey down; I am very tired, and I was not prepared for such
a business as this. I