man
but just home. In the course of a private interview with Dr.
Maryland he had received some disagreeable information.

'By the way, Dane,' said Dr. Maryland relunctantly, 'I have
bad news for you.'

'What is it, sir?'

'At least it is not good. How bad it may be I can't tell.
Hazel has heard all about--what she shouldn't have heard!--the
terms of the will and the whole story.'

A flash of very disagreeable surprise crossed the young man's
face. He was silent.

'It seems Prudentia told her,' Dr. Maryland went on, uneasily.
'I don't understand how she could be so thoughtless; but so it
is. Hazel was very much excited by what she heard.'

'Naturally! You saw her?'

'For a minute. She came to me to know if it was true; but she
did not stay after that.'

No remark from the opposite party.

'I'm very sorry about it,' continued the old gentleman. 'I'm
afraid--I was afraid, it might make you trouble, Dane.
Prudentia is much to blame.'

Dane answered nothing. He wrung his late guardian's hand by
way of acknowledging his sympathy, and left the study.

'I had almost caught my bird!' was his thought, pretty
bitterly realized,--'and this woman has broken my snares. It
isn't the first time!'

He saw, he thought he saw, the whole character and extent of
the mischief that had been done. He knew Wych Hazel; he could
guess at the bound of revulsion her spirit would make at
several points in the narrative that had been told her. He
knew Prudentia; he could fancy that the details lost nothing
in the giving.

But the steadiness, not of feeling, but of nerves and
judgment, which was characteristic of him, kept his eyesight
clear even now. He did not fall into Wych Hazel's confusion of
thoughts and notions; nor did his hunter's instincts fail him.
His game was removed to a distance; _that_ he saw; it might be a
long distance,--and how much patient skill might be called for
before it would be within his grasp again it was impossible to
guess. There were odds of another hunter catching up the
coveted quarry; other snares might be set, of a less
legitimate nature; other weapons called into play than his
own. There are some natures who do not know how to fail, and
who never do fail in what they set themselves to accomplish.
In spite of disadvantages, Rollo had very much in his favour;
and this peculiar constitution of mind, among other things.

He would go up to Chickaree that same day. Before presenting
himself there,