y, with a wallet strapped behind him which Miss Huntingdon had taken
care should be furnished with such things as were needful. His father
also thrust some money into his hand as they parted. And now we must
leave him as he trots briskly away, rather proud of his solitary
journey, and follow his brother, who little suspected that a guard and
protector was pursuing him in the person of his volatile brother Walter.

The little town to which Amos leisurely made his way was about twenty
miles from Flixworth Manor. It was one of those exceedingly quiet
places which, boasting no attractions in the way of either architecture
or situation, and being on the road to or from no places of note or busy
traffic, are visited rarely by any but those who have their permanent
abode in the neighbourhood. Neither did coach pass through it nor
railway near it, so that its winding street or two, with their
straggling masses of dingy houses, would be suggestive to any accidental
visitor of little else than unmitigated dulness. It had, of course, its
post office, which was kept at a miscellaneous shop, and did not tax the
energies of the shopkeeper to any great degree by the number of letters
which passed through his hands. The stamp, however, of this office was
that which Walter had noticed on the letters which had furnished him
with a clew.

The heart of Amos was very sad as he rode along, and yet it was filled
with thankfulness also. Yes, he could now rejoice, because he saw the
dawning of a better day now spreading into broad flushes of morning
light. His father's kindness to him, so unexpected and so precious,
and, almost better still, his father's altered feeling to his sister
Julia--how thoughts of these things gladdened him, spite of his sadness!
Oh, if only he could rid the family of that miserable husband of his
sister's in some lawful way! Of course it might be possible to put the
police on his track; but then, if he were caught and brought to justice,
what a lamentable and open disgrace it would be to them all, and might
perhaps be the means of partially closing the opening door for his
sister to her father's heart.

With such thoughts of mingled cloud and sunshine chasing one another
through his mind, he reached, about two o'clock in the afternoon, the
little town of Dufferly, and drew rein at the dusky entrance to the
Queen's Hotel, as it was somewhat ambitiously called. Having secured a
bed, he walked out into the pe