to drop out, when, as if he saw what was about to take place,
Solomon roused the echoes about the old buildings with another dismal
bray.

"Who can run away with a donkey crying out at him like that!" said Dick
to himself; and in spite of his misery, he once more seated himself upon
the bed-side and laughed.

It was more a hysterical than a natural laugh; but it relieved Dick
Winthorpe's feelings, and just then the clock struck two.

Dick sat on the bed-side and thought. He was not afraid to go--far from
it. A reckless spirit of determination had come over him, and he was
ready to do anything, dare anything; but all the same the wheelwright's
words troubled him, and he could not master the feeling that it would be
painful for the constant repetition to come to his mother's knowledge,
till even she began to think that there must be some truth in the
matter, and he would not be there to defend himself.

That was a painful thought, one which made Dick Winthorpe rise and go
and seat himself on the window-sill and gaze out over the fen.

From where he was seated his eyes ranged over the portion where the
drain was being cut; and as he looked, it seemed to him that all his
troubles had dated from the commencement of the venture by his father,
and those who had joined in the experiment.

Then he thought of the evening when Mr Marston had been brought in
wounded, and the other cases which had evidently been the work of those
opposed to the draining--the fire at Tallington's, the houghing of the
horses, the shots fired, the blowing up of the sluice-gate.

"And they think I did it all," he said to himself with a bitter laugh;
"a boy like me!"

Then he began considering as to who possibly could be the culprit, and
thought and thought till his head ached, and he rose sadly and replaced
the articles in his bundle in the drawer.

"I can't go," he said softly. "I'll face it out like a man, and they
may say what they like."

He stood looking at his bed, with its white pillow just showing in the
faint light which came through the open window, but it did not tempt him
to undress.

"I can't sleep," he said; "and perhaps, if I lie down, I may not hear
Tom coming, if he comes. Why is one so miserable? What have I done?"

There was no mental answer to his question, and he once more went softly
across the room, and sat in the window-sill to gaze out across the fen.

How long he had been watching he could not tell, for his