the Queen's name for the crimes it
was now known he had never committed.

Dick found Frank looking older and graver, much more like his mother,
whom he resembled in disposition too. He greeted the boy quietly but with
evident feeling.

'It seems I owe my liberty to your devilment, old boy,' he said later.

Dick was beginning to find the role of hero rather wearisome, and would
gladly have returned to his old footing with the people of Waddy, but
there was nevertheless a good deal of satisfaction in appearing as a
person of importance in the eyes of the Hardies, and he accepted the
implied gratitude without any excess of uneasiness.

'Well, I've got to pay you out, my lad,' Frank continued. 'Your mother
has been foolish enough to promise to be my wife, and that will place me
in the responsible position of father to the most ungovernable young
scamp in Christendom; and one of the conditions your mother makes is that
I am to prevent you from saving any more lives and reputations. What do
you think of that?'

'Oh, you'll make a rippin' father,' said Dick. That'll be all right.'

'Good. Then it's settled. We have your consent?'

Dick nodded gravely.

'Thanks for your confidence,' said Frank laughing. 'I think you'll find
me a fairly good sort as step-fathers go.'

Dick had no fears whatever on that point; he and Frank had been excellent
friends for as long as he could remember, and Frank had been his champion
in many semi-public disagreements about billy-goats; and besides, he was
a reader whose judgment the boy held in the highest respect, and that
counted for a great deal.

The boy had a message for Harry, and delivered it with great secrecy at
the earliest opportunity.

'She's back at Summers's, Harry,' he whispered. 'She gave Kitty a letter
to give to me to give you.'

Harry tore the envelope with trembling impatient hands. It contained only
a short note: 'Will you come to me at the gate under the firs to-night at
eight?' and was coldly signed, 'Your true friend,

C. S.'

CHAPTER XXIV

HARRY awaited the approach of evening with burning impatience, and his
heart was lighter than it had been for weeks. He thought that now the
distraction induced by her father's danger, his arrest and his death, and
the subsequent trials had departed, he would find her with a clear mind
and responsive to his love, and it would be his pride and joy to teach
her to forget her troubles and to make her happy. Harry, who up