as Geoff had done,
and returning to his duty in the schoolroom. Both boys felt positively
assured that had they been on the spot the catastrophe could not
possibly have occurred.

There was a spell of silence in the tea-house. Now and again the echo
of a sob shook Ned from head to foot. Alick leaned his forehead
against the window jamb, and stared sullenly at the leaping waves
below. As he gazed, a strange resolve came into the boy's mind, born
of the deepening despair consuming him.

In the black gloom that environed him, came Satan's opportunity.

'You will never be forgiven if Theo dies,' whispered the tempting
voice. 'Perhaps you also will be put in prison, who knows, with Ned as
an accomplice!' Alick Carnegy, it will be seen, had but confused
notions as to what manslaughter meant. He shivered and cowered at the
terrifying notions of being shut up for life, perhaps, in some gloomy
gaol. Better-informed boys may jeer at Alick's ignorance of things in
general, but Northbourne was an out-of-the-way, stand-still spot, with
few or no opportunities of smartening the wits, of keeping up with the
times.

'The best way out of the difficulty would be to run away, wouldn't it?'
as he brooded, somebody seemed to suddenly and swiftly whisper in his
ear. And Alick, when the sense of the suggestion penetrated his mind,
abruptly lifted his hanging head. He gasped aloud in relief. A door
of escape opened in the black, impenetrable wall that was closing in
round him.

'Ned,' he said softly, nudging the other boy, 'listen to me! Be done
with that cry-baby business! We two, you and I, have got ourselves
into an awful scrape, and there's only one thing for us. Can't you
guess what that is? Rouse up! Can't you guess?' he repeated
impatiently.

'Me guess? No! I can't make Miss Theedory get well; and what else
matters?' Ned lifted a tear-stained face to say brokenly.

'You've often said you'd be game to run away to sea, if I made up my
mind to do it, haven't you? Well, all the blame of whatever happens
comes on us--you and me. We are bound to suffer the penalty.' Alick
spoke slowly, and with the air of weighing his words, while Ned
listened in awe. 'Now, then, it seems to me, is our chance to do it.
Let's set out this very night; they'd never miss us in all the--the
worry about Theo, until it would be too late to overtake us. We could
walk to London in about three days, I expect; and once at the Docks it
w