should we?" he asked.

But his mother made no reply, and they walked home.

Next day she insisted on going again to the same place, and again she
was obviously on the look-out. Horace grew more and more puzzled by her
demeanour. And when the third day came, and once more Mrs. Errington
called him to set forth to the Serpentine, he said to her, with a boy's
bluntness----

"D'you want to meet someone there?"

Mrs. Errington looked at him strangely.

"Yes," she said, after a minute's silence.

"Why, who is it?"

"That beggar I wouldn't let you give money to."

Horace turned scarlet with the shock of surprise and the
knowledge--which he absurdly felt as guilty knowledge--that the man was
dead, perhaps even buried by now.

"Oh, nonsense, Mater!" he began, stammering. "He won't come there again.
Besides, you never give to beggars."

"I mean to give this man something."

Horace was more and more surprised.

"Why?" he exclaimed. "Why now? You wouldn't when I wanted you to, and
now--now it's too late. What do you wish to give to him for now?"

But all she would say was, "I feel that I should like to, that--that his
perhaps really was a deserving case. Come, Horace, let us go and try to
find him."

And the boy, bound by his word to Captain Hindford, was forced to go out
in search of a dead man. He felt the horror of this quest. To-day Mrs.
Errington carried her purse in her hand, and looked eagerly out for the
beggar. Once she fancied she saw him in the distance.

"There he is!" she cried to Horace. "Run and fetch him."

The boy turned pale, and stared.

"Where, Mater?"

"Among those trees."

"It can't be! Nonsense!"

"No," she said; "you are right. I made a mistake. It's only somebody
like him. Why, Horace, what's the matter?"

"Nothing," he answered.

But he was shaking. The business was too ghastly. He felt he couldn't
stand it much longer, and he resolved to go to Captain Hindford and
persuade the Captain to absolve him from his promise. In the afternoon
of the same day, accordingly, he went off to Knightsbridge. He rang, and
was told that Captain Hindford had gone to Paris and was afterwards
going for a tour on the Continent. His heart sank at the news. Was he to
go on day after day searching with his mother for this corpse, which was
rotting in the grave? He asked for Hindford's address. It was Poste
Restante, Monte Carlo. But the servant added that letters sent there
might have to wait for two