than twenty-four hours ago, Charles, I offered Father Mackworth L10,000
for this paper, with a view to destroying it. You see what a poor weak
rogue I am, and what a criminal I might become with a little temptation.
Father Mackworth did his duty and refused me!"

"You acted like yourself, Cuthbert. Like one who would risk body and
soul for one you loved. But it is time that this scene should end. I
utterly refuse the assistance so nobly offered. I go forth alone into
the world to make my own way, or to be forgotten. It only remains to say
good-bye. I leave this house without a hard thought towards any one in
it. I am at peace with all the world. Father Mackworth, I beg your
forgiveness. I have often been rude and brutal to you. Good-bye!"

He shook hands with Mackworth, then with William, and lastly he went up
to Cuthbert and kissed him on the cheek; and then walked out of the door
into the hall.

"I am going to follow him, wherever he goes," said William. "If he goes
to the world's end, I will be with him!"

_II.--Charles Loses Himself_

Charles fled from Ravenshoe for London in the middle of the night,
determined that William should not follow him. But he could not bear to
go out and seek fortune without seeing Adelaide. So he called at
Ranford, Lord Ascot's seat, only to learn that Adelaide had eloped with
Lord Welter. The two were married when he afterwards saw them in London.

Charles had to tell his story to old Lady Ascot, and when he had gone
she said to herself, "I will never keep another secret after this. It
was for Alicia's sake and for Peter's that I did it, and now see what
has become of me!"

In London, Charles Ravenshoe committed suicide deliberately. He did not
hang himself or drown himself; he hired himself out as groom--being
perfectly accomplished in everything relating to horses--to Lieutenant
Hornby, of the 140th Hussars; and when the Crimean War broke out,
enlisted, under the name of Simpson, as a trooper in Hornby's regiment.

On October 25 Charles was at Balaclava. They went down hill, straight
towards the guns, and almost at once the shot from them began to tell.
Charles was in the second line, and the men in the front line began to
fall terribly fast as they rode into the narrowing valley. It was
impossible to keep line. Presently the batteries right and left opened
on them, and those who were there engaged can give us very little idea
of what followed in the next quarter of an ho