"Oh, about Dexter!"

"Yes, papa," said Helen, turning.

"What do you think about--"

Dexter heard no more. Taking advantage of Helen's back being turned as she bent over towards the speaker, the boy stepped quickly to the staircase, ran up, and had reached the first landing before Helen came out into the hall, while before she had closed the door he was up another flight, and gliding softly toward his own room, where he stood panting as he closed the door, just as if he had been running a distance which had taken away his breath.

It was a narrow escape, and he was safe; but his ears tingled still, and he longed to know what the doctor had said about him.

As he stood listening, cap in hand, he heard Helen pa.s.s his door singing softly one of the ballads he had heard that evening; and once more a curious dull sensation of misery came over him, as he seemed to feel that he would never hear her sing again, never feel the touch of her soft caressing hand; and somehow there was a vague confused sense of longing to go to one who had treated him with an affectionate interest he had never known before, even now hardly understood, but it seemed to him such gentleness and love as might have come from a mother.

For a moment or two he felt that he must open the door, call to her, throw himself upon his knees before her, and confess everything, but at that moment the laughing, mocking face of Bob Dimsted seemed to rise between them, and his words buzzed in his ear--words that he had often said when listening to some account of Dexter's troubles--

"Bother the old lessons, and all on 'em! I wouldn't stand it if I was you. They've no right to order you about, and scold you as they do."

The weak moments pa.s.sed, and just then there was the doctor's cough heard, and the closing of his door, while directly after came the chiming of the church clock--a quarter past eleven.

Half an hour to wait and think, and then good-bye to all his troubles, and the beginning of a new life of freedom!

All the freedom and the future seemed to be behind a black cloud; but in the fond belief that all would soon grow clear Dexter waited.

Half-past eleven, and he wondered that he did not feel sleepy.

It was time to begin though now, and he took the line and laid it out in a serpentine fashion upon the carpet, so that there should be no kinks in the way; and then the next thing was to fasten one end tightly so that he could safely slide down.

He had well thought out his plans, and, taking one end of the line, he knotted it securely to the most substantial place he could find in the room, pa.s.sing it behind two of the bars of the grate. Then cautiously opening his window, a little bit at a time, he thrust it higher and higher, every faint creak sending a chill through him, while, when he looked out upon the dark starlight night, it seemed as if he would have to descend into a black gulf, where something blacker was waiting to seize him.

But he knew that the black things below were only great shrubs, and lowering the rope softly down he at last had the satisfaction of hearing it rustle among the leaves.

Then he waited, and after a glance round to see that everything was straight, and the letter laid ready upon the table, he put out the candle.

"For the last time!" he said to himself, and a great sigh came unbidden from his breast.

A quarter to twelve.

Dexter waited till the last stroke on the bell was thrilling in the air before setting his cap on tightly, and pa.s.sing one leg over the sill.

He sat astride for a few moments, hesitating for the last time, and then pa.s.sed the other leg, and lowered himself down till he hung by his hands, then twisted his legs about the rope, seized it with first one hand then the other, and hung by it with his whole weight, in the precarious position of one trusting to an old doubled clothes-line, suspended from a second-floor window.

It was hard work that descent, for he could not slide on account of the knots; and, to make his position more awkward, the rope began to untwist--one line from the other,--and, in consequence, as the boy descended slowly, he bore no small resemblance to a leg of mutton turning before a fire.

That was the only mishap which occurred to him then, for after resting for a few moments upon the first-floor sill he continued his journey, and reached the bottom in the midst of a great laurel, which rustled loudly as he tried to get out, and then tripped over a horizontal branch, and fell flat.

He was up again in an instant, and, trembling and panting, made a couple of bounds which took him over the gravel walk and on to the lawn, where he stood panting and listening.

There was a light in the doctor's room, and one in Helen's; and just then the doctor's shadow, looking horribly threatening, was thrown upon the blind.

He must be coming, Dexter thought, and, turning quickly, he sped down the lawn, avoiding the flower-beds by instinct, and the next minute had reached the kitchen-garden, down whose winding green walk he rapidly made his way.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

DARK DEEDS.

It was very dark among the trees as Dexter reached the gra.s.s plot which sloped to the willows by the river-side, but he knew his way so well that he crept along in silence till he had one hand resting upon the trunk he had so often climbed, and stood there gazing across the starlit water, trying to make out the figure of his companion in the boat.

All was silent, save that, now and then, the water as it ran among the tree-roots made a peculiar whispering sound, and once or twice there was a faint plash in the distance, as if from the feeding of a fish.

"Hist! Bob! Are you there!"

"Hullo!" came from the other side. "I was just a-going."

"Going?"

"Yes. I thought you wasn't a-coming, and I wasn't going to stop here all night."

"But you said twelve."

"Well, it struck twelve an hour ago."

"No; that was eleven. There--hark!"

As proof of Dexter's a.s.sertion the church clock just then began to chime, and the heavy boom of the tenor bell proclaiming midnight seemed to make the soft night air throb.

"Thought it was twelve long enough ago. Ready!"

"Yes," said Dexter, in an excited whisper. "Got the boat?"

"No: course I haven't. It'll take two to get that boat."

"But you said you would have it ready."

"Yes, I know; but we must both of us do that. I waited till you come."

This was a shock; and Dexter said, in a disappointed tone--

"But how am I to get to you!"

"Come across," said Bob coolly.

"Come across--in the dark!"

"Why, of course. You ain't afraid, are you? Well, you are a chap!"

"But it's too deep to wade."

"Well, who said it wasn't!" growled the boy. "You can swim, can't you?"