inutes before they reached the tutor's
lodgings being of the least interest. Then, as they turned the edge of a
wood, Peter looked back.

"You won't forget the turn of the lane you are to take, will you, Mr.
Brandon? and you've got the key?"

"Yes," said Brandon.

"It's a green sort of door, in the park-paling. A new one has been made,
because that one was so shabby. It's the one my uncles went through when
they ran away, you know."

"What uncles?" asked Brandon, not at all suspecting the truth, and not
much interested.

"Why, that one who belonged to you," said Peter, "and the other one who
belongs to Bertie and Hugh. Didn't you know?" he exclaimed, having
observed the momentary flash of surprise that Brandon made haste to
conceal. "They ran away," he repeated, as Brandon walked beside him
making no answer, "a very long time before my mamma was born, and they
never came back any more till I was nearly six years old."

"So that's your tutor's house, is it?" said Brandon, and thereupon he
took leave of him.

"Amazing!" he said to himself as he walked away. "What next, I wonder?"

As he returned he revolved this information in his mind with increasing
surprise. John Mortimer had a proud and confident way of talking about
his father that did not sound as if he knew that he had begun life by
running away from home. Valentine, he was well aware, knew nothing about
it.

Coming on, he turned aside to talk to some men who were digging a well.
He knew how to talk to working people, and, what is more to the purpose,
he knew how to make them talk; but though they proffered a good deal of
information about the neighbourhood, nothing was said that gave him any
of the knowledge he wanted. And shortly he went on, and let himself in
at the little gate with his key. It was not yet eleven o'clock, and as
he did not want to see the ladies of the family so soon, he determined
to go down into the steep glen and look about him.

He had no doubt now that to this place the superstitious story belonged.

First, he skirted it all about. From above it was nearly as round as a
cup, and as deep in proportion to its size. The large old trees had been
left, and appeared almost to fill it up, their softly rounded heads
coming to within three feet of the level where he stood. All the mother
birds--rooks, jays, thrushes, and pigeons--were plainly in view under
him, as they sat brooding on their nests among the topmost twigs, and
there was