arefully, and then slid down the
mahogany rail, round curve after curve as silently as could be, and
reaching the curl at the bottom dropped upon the mat.

Only five or six yards now to the hat-stand, and going on tiptoe past
the entrance to the drawing-room, he was in the act of taking down the
cap, when the handle rattled, the door was thrown open, and the hall
grew more light.

In his desperation Dexter snatched down the cap, and stood there trying
to think of what he should say in answer to the question that would be
asked in a moment--

"What are you doing there!"

It was Helen, chamber-candlestick in hand, and she was in the act of
stepping out, when her step was arrested by words which seemed to pierce
into the listener's brain:--

"Oh, about Dexter!"

"Yes, papa," said Helen, turning.

"What do you think about--"

Dexter heard no more. Taking advantage of Helen's back being turned as
she bent over towards the speaker, the boy stepped quickly to the
staircase, ran up, and had reached the first landing before Helen came
out into the hall, while before she had closed the door he was up
another flight, and gliding softly toward his own room, where he stood
panting as he closed the door, just as if he had been running a distance
which had taken away his breath.

It was a narrow escape, and he was safe; but his ears tingled still, and
he longed to know what the doctor had said about him.

As he stood listening, cap in hand, he heard Helen pass his door singing
softly one of the ballads he had heard that evening; and once more a
curious dull sensation of misery came over him, as he seemed to feel
that he would never hear her sing again, never feel the touch of her
soft caressing hand; and somehow there was a vague confused sense of
longing to go to one who had treated him with an affectionate interest
he had never known before, even now hardly understood, but it seemed to
him such gentleness and love as might have come from a mother.

For a moment or two he felt that he must open the door, call to her,
throw himself upon his knees before her, and confess everything, but at
that moment the laughing, mocking face of Bob Dimsted seemed to rise
between them, and his words buzzed in his ear--words that he had often
said when listening to some account of Dexter's troubles--

"Bother the old lessons, and all on 'em! I wouldn't stand it if I was
you. They've no right to order you about, and scold you as they