starts in a few minutes, and your aunt----"

A terrific banging was now heard from the locked-up room, accompanied
by shouts and cries from the imprisoned lady. Austin advanced to the
foot of the staircase, looking rather white, and listened.

"Austin! Austin! Where are you? What have you done with the key?"
shrieked Aunt Charlotte, in a tempest of despair and rage. "Let me
out, I say, let me out at once! It's you who have done this, I know it
is. Open the door, or I shall lose the train!" A fresh bombardment
from the lady's fists here followed. "Where _is_ Austin, Martha? Can't
you find him anywhere?"

"He's here, ma'am," cried back Martha, in quavering tones, "but he
don't seem as if----"

"Call Lubin with a ladder!" interrupted the desperate lady. "I must
catch the omnibus, if I break all my bones in getting out of the
window. Where's Lubin? Isn't there a ladder tall enough? Austin!
Austin! Where _is_ Austin, and why doesn't he open the door?"

"He was here not a moment ago," replied Martha, tremulously, "but
where he's got to now, or where he's put the key, the Lord only knows.
Perhaps he's gone to see about a ladder. Lubin! have you seen Master
Austin anywhere?"

But Austin, unobserved in the confusion, having stealthily glanced at
his watch, had slipped out at the garden gate, and now stood looking
down the road. The omnibus had just started, and for about thirty
seconds he remained watching it as it lumbered and clattered along in
a cloud of dust until it was lost to view. Then he went back to the
house, and handed the key to Martha. "There's the key," he said. "Tell
Aunt Charlotte I'm going for a walk, and I'll let her know all about
it when I come back to lunch."

He was out of the house in a twinkling, stumping along as hard as he
could go until he reached the moors. He had played a daring game, but
felt quite satisfied with the result so far, as he knew that there
were no cabs to be had in the village, and that, even if his aunt were
mad enough to brave a two-mile tramp along the broiling road, she
could not possibly reach the station in time to catch the train. Now
that the deed was done, a sensation of fatigue stole over him, and
with a sigh of relief he flung himself down on the soft tussocks of
purple heather, and covered his eyes with his straw hat. For
half-an-hour he lay there motionless and deep in thought. No suspicion
that he had acted wrongly disturbed him for a moment. Of course it was
a