t them keep the child so long. As little did Dorothy know that what
she yielded for the sake of the wife, they desired for the sake of the
husband.

At length one morning came a break: Faber received a note from the
gate-keeper, informing him that Miss Drake was having the pond at the
foot of her garden emptied into the Lythe by means of a tunnel, the
construction of which was already completed. They were now boring for a
small charge of gunpowder expected to liberate the water. The process of
emptying would probably be rapid, and he had taken the liberty of
informing Mr. Faber, thinking he might choose to be present. No one but
the persons employed would be allowed to enter the grounds.

This news gave him a greater shock than he could have believed possible.
He thought he had "supped full of horrors!" At once he arranged with his
assistant for being absent the whole day; and rode out, followed by his
groom. At the gate Polwarth joined him, and walked beside him to the Old
House, where his groom, he said, could put up the horses. That done, he
accompanied him to the mouth of the tunnel, and there left him.

Faber sat down on the stump of a felled tree, threw a big cloak, which
he had brought across the pommel of his saddle, over his knees, and
covered his face with his hands. Before him the river ran swiftly toward
the level country, making a noise of watery haste; also the wind was in
the woods, with the noises of branches and leaves, but the only sounds
he heard were the blows of the hammer on the boring-chisel, coming dull,
and as if from afar, out of the depths of the earth. What a strange,
awful significance they had to the heart of Faber! But the end was
delayed hour after hour, and there he still sat, now and then at a
louder noise than usual lifting up a white face, and staring toward the
mouth of the tunnel. At the explosion the water would probably rush in a
torrent from the pit, and in half an hour, perhaps, the pond would be
empty. But Polwarth had taken good care there should be no explosion
that day. Ever again came the blow of iron upon iron, and the boring had
begun afresh.

Into her lovely chamber Dorothy had carried to Juliet the glad tidings
that her husband was within a few hundred yards of the house, and that
she might trust Mr. Polwarth to keep him there until all danger was
over.

Juliet now manifested far more courage than she had given reason to
expect. It seemed as if her husband's nearne