mell blue
water."

"Come on, then!" cried Alfred, half mad himself; and the pair ran
furiously the livelong night. Free!

_IV.--Into Smooth Waters_

Exhilarated by freedom, Alfred began to nurse aspiring projects; he
would indict his own father and the doctor, and wipe off the stigma they
had cast on him. Meantime, he would cure David and restore him to his
family. They bowled along towards blue water with a perfect sense of
security. But at Folkestone, David disappeared, and Alfred, hearing as
he ran wildly all over the place that there was "another party on the
same lay"--the mad gentleman's wife--took the first train to London,
dispirited and mortified. David was in good hands, however, and Alfred
had glorious work on hand--love and justice.

He at once put his affairs into a lawyer's hands, and thought of love
alone. After a violent encounter with his late keepers and a narrow
escape from capture, in the midst of Elysium with Julia, her mother
returned in despair. David had completely disappeared. Again these
lovers were separated, and again Edward's commonsense came to the
rescue. Alfred went back to Oxford to read for his first class, and
Julia to her district visiting, while the terrible delays of the law
went on. Alfred had begun to believe trial by jury would never be
allowed him, and when at last, after many postponements, the trial did
come on, he was being examined in the schools, and refused to come till
his counsel had actually opened the case. Mr. Thomas Hardie, Alfred's
uncle, was the defendant, for it was proved he had authorised Alfred's
arrest.

A detective had been employed to find Mr. Barkington, a little man in
Julia's district, whom the lawyers suspected might be useful; and when
the trial was half over, he led them all in great excitement to the back
slums of Westminster. Mr. Barkington, _alias_ Noah Skinner, was wanted
by another client of his.

The room was full of an acrid vapour, and a mummified figure sat at the
table, dead this many a day of charcoal fumes; in his hand a banker's
receipt to David Dodd, Esq., for L14,000. The lawyer was handing it to
Julia, having just found a will bequeathing all Skinner had in the world
to her, with his blessing, when a solemn voice said: "No; it is mine."

A keen cry from Julia's heart, and in an instant she was clinging round
her father's neck. Edward could only get at his hand. Instinct told them
Heaven had given them back their father, min