th? The
necessity, if it should prove to be one, was cruel.

"Pray Heaven he be innocent!" he said.

And then steps sounded on the flagging, and Sir Oliver came gravely
towards the lad.

"One seeketh you earnestly," said Dick.

"I am upon the way, good Richard," said the priest. "It is this poor
Carter. Alack, he is beyond cure."

"And yet his soul is sicker than his body," answered Dick.

"Have ye seen him?" asked Sir Oliver, with a manifest start.

"I do but come from him," replied Dick.

"What said he? what said he?" snapped the priest, with extraordinary
eagerness.

"He but cried for you the more piteously, Sir Oliver. It were well done
to go the faster, for his hurt is grievous," returned the lad.

"I am straight for him," was the reply. "Well, we have all our sins. We
must all come to our latter day, good Richard."

"Ay, sir; and it were well if we all came fairly," answered Dick.

The priest dropped his eyes, and with an inaudible benediction hurried
on.

"He, too!" thought Dick--"he, that taught me in piety! Nay, then, what a
world is this, if all that care for me be blood-guilty of my father's
death? Vengeance! Alas! what a sore fate is mine, if I must be avenged
upon my friends!"

The thought put Matcham in his head. He smiled at the remembrance of his
strange companion, and then wondered where he was. Ever since they had
come together to the doors of the Moat House the younger lad had
disappeared, and Dick began to weary for a word with him.

About an hour after, mass being somewhat hastily run through by Sir
Oliver, the company gathered in the hall for dinner. It was a long, low
apartment, strewn with green rushes, and the walls hung with arras in a
design of savage men and questioning bloodhounds; here and there hung
spears and bows and bucklers; a fire blazed in the big chimney; there
were arras-covered benches round the wall, and in the midst the table,
fairly spread, awaited the arrival of the diners. Neither Sir Daniel nor
his lady made their appearance. Sir Oliver himself was absent, and here
again there was no word of Matcham. Dick began to grow alarmed, to
recall his companion's melancholy forebodings, and to wonder to himself
if any foul play had befallen him in that house.

After dinner he found Goody Hatch, who was hurrying to my Lady Brackley.

"Goody," he said, "where is Master Matcham, I prithee? I saw ye go in
with him when we arrived."

The old woman laughed aloud.

"