ow should I know?" said he shortly. "What's the use of talking about
it?"

There was something mysterious in Herapath's manner which disturbed his
friend. It was bad enough not to be backed up in his own schemes, but
to feel that his chum knew something that he did not, was very hard on
Sir Digby.

Now he recalled it, Arthur had all along been somewhat reserved about
the business. He had made sport of other fellows' theories, but he had
never disclosed his own. Yet it was evident he had his own ideas on the
subject. Was it come to this, that after all these terms of confidence
and alliance, a petty secret was to come between them and cloud the
hitherto peaceful horizon of their fellowship?

Digby, perhaps, did not exactly put the idea into these poetical words,
but the matter troubled him quite as much.

Now, it is my intention, at this place, generously to disclose to the
reader what was hidden from Sir Digby Oakshott, Baronet, and from
everyone else at Grandcourt--namely, that Arthur Herapath was fully
persuaded in his own mind that he knew the name of the arch offender in
the recent outrage, and was resolved through thick and thin to shield
him from detection. He was perfectly aware that in so doing he made
himself an accessory after the fact, but that was a risk he was prepared
to run. Only it decided him to keep his knowledge to himself.

Arthur was not a particularly sharp boy. His qualities were chiefly of
the bull-dog order. He did not take things in with the rapidity of some
fellows, but when he did get his teeth into a fact he held on like grim
death. So it was now. In the first excitement of the discovery he had
been as much at sea and as wild in his conjectures as anybody. But
after a little he stumbled upon a piece of evidence which gave him a
serious turn, and had kept him serious ever since.

On the morning of the discovery, Arthur, being in the neighbourhood of
the "boot-box," thought he would have a look round. There was no fear
of his mistaking the place; he had been there before, and seen Mr
Bickers come out of the sack. Everything was pretty much as it had been
left. The sack lay in the corner where it had been thrown, and the
cord, all except the piece which the baronet had secured, was there too.
On the dusty floor could clearly be perceived the place where Mr
Bickers had rolled about in his uncomfortable shackles during the night,
and on the ledge of the dim window which let l