"Hold your tongue, will you?" he roared. "You so much as say another word, and I'll make you fight it put."

Bob's jaw dropped, and he stared in astonishment at the fierce face before him, reading therein so much determination to carry the threat into effect that he subsided sulkily in his corner, and turned away his face, for every time he glanced at the other end of the carriage it was to see Peter grinning at him.

"Ah!" said Peter at last; "it's a good job for us as Dan'l held you back. You made me shiver."

Bob scowled.

"He's thoroughbred game, he is, Dan'l."

Dan'l chuckled.

"He'd be a terrible chap when his monkey was up. Oh, I am glad. He'd ha' been sure to win."

"Let him alone," growled Dan'l, with a low chuckling noise that sounded something like the slow turning of a weak watchman's rattle; and then muttering something about white-livered he subsided into his corner, and solaced himself with his pipe.

Meanwhile Peter sat opposite, talking in a low tone to Dexter, and began to ask him questions about his adventures, listening with the greatest eagerness to the short answers he received, till Dexter looked up at him piteously.

"Don't talk to me, please, Peter," he said. "I want to sit and think."

"And so you shall, my lad," said the groom; and he too took out a pipe, and smoked till they reached Coleby.

Dexter shivered as he stepped out upon the platform. It seemed to him that the stationmaster and porters were staring at him as the boy who ran away, and he was looking round for a way of retreat, so as to escape what was to come, when Sir James and the doctor came up to them.

"You can let that boy go," said the doctor to Dan'l.

"Let him go, sir?" cried the gardener, looking at both the gentlemen in turn.

Sir James nodded.

Bob, whose eyes had been rat-like in their eager peering from face to face, whisked himself free, darted to the end of the platform, and uttered a loud yell before he disappeared.

"Look here, Dexter," said the doctor coldly; "I have been talking to Sir James on our way here. Now sir, will you give me your word not to try and escape?"

Dexter looked at him for a moment or two.

"Yes, sir," he said at last, with a sigh.

"Then come with me."

"Come with you, sir?"

Dexter looked at his stained and muddy clothes.

"Yes," said the doctor; "come with me."

Sir James shrugged his shoulders slightly, and gave the doctor a meaning look.

"Good-bye, Grayson," he said, and he shook hands.

"As for you, sir," he added sternly, as he turned to Dexter, "you and your companion have had a very narrow escape. If it had not been for your good friend here, matters would have gone ill with you--worse perhaps than you think."

Dexter hung his head, and at a sign from the doctor went to his side, and they walked out of the station with Dan'l and Peter behind.

The doctor stopped.

"You have given me your word, sir, that you will come quietly up to the house," he said coldly.

"Yes, sir," said Dexter sadly.

The doctor, signed to Dan'l and Peter to come up to them.

"You can go on first," he said; and the men pa.s.sed on.

"I don't want you to feel as if you were a prisoner, Dexter," said the doctor gravely. "It is one of the grandest things in a gentleman--his word--which means his word of honour."

Dexter had nothing he could say; and with a strange swelling at the throat he walked on beside the doctor, gazing at the pavement a couple of yards in front of him, and suffering as a sensitive boy would suffer as he felt how degraded and dirty he looked, and how many people in the town must know of his running away, and be gazing at him, now that he was brought back by the doctor, who looked upon him as a thief.

Every house and shop they pa.s.sed was familiar. There were several of the tradespeople too standing at their doors ready to salute the doctor, and Dexter's cheeks burned with shame. His punishment seemed more than he could bear.

In another ten minutes they would be at the house, where Maria would open the door, and give him a peculiar contemptuous look--the old look largely intensified; and but for the doctor's words, and the promise given, the boy felt that he must have run away down the first side-turning they pa.s.sed.

Then, as Maria faded from his mental vision, pleasant old Mrs Millett appeared, with her hands raised, and quite a storm of reproaches ready to be administered to him, followed, when she had finished and forgiven him, as he knew she would forgive him, by a dose of physic, deemed by her to be absolutely necessary after his escapade.

The house at last, and everything just as Dexter had antic.i.p.ated. Maria opened the door, and then wrinkled up her forehead and screwed up her lips in a supercilious smile.

"Your mistress in!" said the doctor.

"Yes, sir, in the drawing-room, sir."

"Hah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the doctor.

"Found him, sir? _And_ brought him back!" cried a familiar voice; and Mrs Millett hurried into the hall. "O you bold, bad boy!" she cried.

"How dare you? And you never took your medicine that night. Oh, for shame! for shame!"

"Hush, hush, Mrs Millett!" said the doctor sternly. "That will do."

He signed to the old lady, and she left the hall, but turned to shake her head at the returned culprit as she went, while Maria gave him a meaning smile as soon as the doctor's back was turned, and then pa.s.sed through the baize door.

The doctor stood there silent and frowning for a few minutes, with his eyes fixed upon the floor, while Dexter awaited his sentence, painfully conscious, and longing for the doctor to speak and put him out of his misery.

"Now, sir," he said at last; "you had better go in and speak to Miss Grayson. She is waiting, I suppose, to see you in that room. I sent word we were coming."

"No, no," said Dexter quickly. "Don't send me in there, sir. You'd better send me back to the school, sir. I'm no good, and shall only get into trouble again; please send me back. I shouldn't like to see Miss Grayson now."

"Why not!" said the doctor sternly.

"Because you don't believe me, sir, and she won't, and--and--you had better send me back."

"I am waiting to see you here, Dexter," said Helen gravely, and the boy started away with a cry, for the drawing-room door had opened silently, and Helen was standing on the mat.