ght from his own home, lashed
like a dog from every familiar hearth by an unseen hand and a heavy
scourge.

Phebe had not lingered, though she seemed long away. As she drew near
the little workshop she saw the wagon half-laden with some church
furniture her father had been carving, and with which he and she were to
start at daybreak for a village about twenty miles off. She heard the
light tap of his carving tools as she opened the door, and found him
finishing the wings of a spread-eagle. He had pushed back the paper cap
he wore from his forehead, which was deeply furrowed, and shaded by a
few straggling tufts of gray hair. He took no notice of her entrance
until she touched his arm with her hand; and then he looked at her with
eyes, blue like her own, but growing dim with age, and full of the
pitiful, uncomplaining gaze of one who is deaf and dumb. But his face
brightened and his smile was cheerful, as he began to talk eagerly with
his fingers, throwing in many gestures to aid his slow speech. Phebe,
too, smiled and gesticulated in silent answer, before she told him her
errand.

"The carving is finished, father," she said. "Could we not start at
once, and be at Upchurch before five to-morrow morning?"

"Twenty miles; eight hours; easily," he answered; "but why?"

"To help Mr. Sefton," she said. "He wants to get down to Southampton,
and Upchurch is in the way. Father, it must be done; you would never see
a smile upon my face again if we did not do it."

The keen, wistful eyes of her father were fastened alternately upon her
troubled face and her moving hands, as slowly and silently she spelt out
on her fingers the sad story she had just listened to. His own face
changed rapidly from astonishment to dismay, and from dismay to a
passionate rage. If Roland Sefton could have seen it he would have made
good his escape. But still Phebe's fingers went on pleading for him; and
the smile, which she said her father would never see again--a pale, wan
smile--met his eyes as he watched her.

"He has been so good to you and me," she went on, with a sob in her
throat; and unconsciously she spoke out the words aloud and slowly as
she told them off on her fingers; "he learned to talk with you as I do,
and he is the only person almost in the world who can talk to you
without your slate and pencil, father. It was good of him to take that
trouble. And his father was your best friend, wasn't he? How good Madame
used to be when I was