not the sight of Riddell slowly going the same way ahead of him suddenly
checked his progress.

As it was, he almost ran over him before he perceived who it was. For
Riddell just at that moment had halted in his walk, and stooped to pick
up a book that lay on the path.

However, when Wyndham saw who it was, he swerved hurriedly in another
direction, and got to his destination by a roundabout way, feeling as he
reached it about as miserable and hopeless as it was possible for a boy
to be.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

A SELECT PARTY AT THE DOCTOR'S.

Young Wyndham, had he only known what was in the captain's mind as he
walked that afternoon across the Big, would probably have thought twice
before he went such a long way round to avoid him.

Silk's little piece of pantomime had not had the effect the author
intended. In the quick glance which Riddell had given towards the bench
and its occupants he had taken in pretty accurately the real state of
the case.

"Poor fellow!" said he to himself; "he's surely in trouble enough
without being laid hold of by that cad. Silk thinks I shall fancy he
has captured my old favourite. Let him! But if he has captured him he
doesn't seem very sure of him, or he wouldn't hold him down on the seat
like that. I wonder what brings them together here? and I wonder if I
had better go and interfere? No, I think I won't just now."

And so he walked on, troubled enough to be sure, but not concluding
quite as much from what he saw as Wyndham feared or Silk hoped.

As he walked on fellows glared at him from a distance, and others
passing closer cut him dead. A few of the most ardent Parrett's juniors
took the liberty of hissing him and one ventured to call out, pointedly,
"Who cut the rudder-lines?"

Riddell, however, though he winced under these insults, took little
notice of them. He was as determined as ever to wait the confirmation
of his suspicions before he unmasked the culprit, and equally convinced
that duty and honour both demanded that he should lose not a moment in
coming to a conclusion.

It was in the midst of these reflections that the small book which
Wyndham had seen him pick up caught his eye. He picked it up
mechanically, and after noticing that it appeared to be a notebook, and
had no owner's name in the beginning, carried it with him, and forgot
all about it till he reached his study.

Even here it was some time before it again attracted his attention, as
i