of his strength.

He dared not take time to glance at his watch, for he knew the fraction
of a second he would thus lose might mean the difference between in time
and too late. On he ran still and presently he left the path and took
the fields.

But he had forgotten that though the distance might be shorter the going
would be harder, and on the rough grass he stumbled, and across the bare
ground damp earth clung to his boots and hindered him as though each
foot had become laden with lead.

His speed was slower, his effort greater if possible, and when he came
to a hedge he made no effort to leap, but crashed through it as best he
could and broke or clambered or tumbled a path for himself.

Now Ottam's Wood was very near, and reeling and staggering like a man
wounded to the death but driven by inexorable fate, he plunged on still,
and there was a little froth gathering at the corners of his mouth and
from one of his nostrils came a thin trickle of blood.

Yet still he held on, though in truth he hardly knew any longer why he
ran or what his need for haste, and as he came to the wood round a spur
where a cluster of young beeches grew, he saw a tall, upright, elderly
man walking there, well-dressed and of a neat, soldier-like appearance.

"Hallo--there you are--father--" he gasped and fell down, prone
unconscious.

CHAPTER XXVII. FLIGHT AND PURSUIT

When he came to himself he was lying on his back, and bending over him
was his father's familiar face, wearing an expression of great surprise
and wonder, and still greater annoyance.

"What is the matter?" General Dunsmore asked as soon as he saw that his
son's senses were returning to him. "Have you all gone mad together? You
send me a mysterious note to meet you here at three, you turn up racing
and running like an escaped lunatic, and with a disgusting growth of
hair all over your face, so that I didn't know you till you spoke, and
then there's Walter dodging about in the wood here like a poacher hiding
from the keepers. Are you both quite mad, Rupert?"

"Walter," Rupert repeated, lifting himself on one hand, "Walter--have
you seen him?"

"Over there," said the general, nodding towards the right. "He was
dodging and creeping about for all the world like some poaching rascal.
I waved, but he didn't see me, and when I tried to overtake him I lost
sight of him somehow in the trees, and found I had come right out of my
way for Brook Bourne Spring."

"Thank