and honest penitence, give me a word of help."

The wounded man lay silent; nor, say what Dick pleased, could he extract
another word from him.

"Well," said Dick, "I will go call the priest to you as ye desired; for
howsoever ye be in fault to me or mine, I would not be willingly in
fault to any, least of all to one upon the last change."

Again the old soldier heard him without speech or motion; even his
groans he had suppressed; and as Dick turned and left the room, he was
filled with admiration for that rugged fortitude.

"And yet," he thought, "of what use is courage without wit? Had his
hands been clean, he would have spoken; his silence did confess the
secret louder than words. Nay, upon all sides, proof floweth on me. Sir
Daniel, he or his men, hath done this thing."

Dick paused in the stone passage with a heavy heart. At that hour, in
the ebb of Sir Daniel's fortune, when he was beleaguered by the archers
of the Black Arrow, and proscribed by the victorious Yorkists, was Dick,
also, to turn upon the man who had nourished and taught him, who had
severely punished, indeed, but yet unwearyingly protected his youth?
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, an