His manner was changed, and Jack would have been more than mortal if he had not felt the change. It hurt and disappointed him sorely; coming just when he had done all he could. But he hid his chagrin, and, turning obediently away, set off without a word down the rift, and thence through the wood of yews, where the sheltering gloom was now as welcome to him as it had been before alarming. As he approached the house, however, and the immediate necessity of facing Mistress Gridley and the brothers with an unmoved countenance forced itself upon him, he paused involuntarily, trembling under the sense of sudden fear which beset him. The horrible events of the morning, the cries of the men whom he had seen cut down on the moor, his brother's danger, and the consequences of a hapless word, all rushed into his mind together, and for the moment, if the word may be used of so young a child, unmanned him. Clutching the trunk of the last tree he had to pass, he leaned against it in a very ague of terror; afraid to go forward, shaking at the very thought of going forward and facing those unfriendly eyes, yet knowing that if he would save his brother, if he would not shame his blood and breeding, he must go forward. [Illustration: He leaned against it in a very ague of terror.--Page 75.] While he stood in this agony--for it was nothing less--butler Gridley, loitering about the back-door with thoughts and for a purpose of his own, espied him; and with a stealthy foot and a glance in the direction of the house, made towards him. The least observant eye must have detected the boy's terror, or seen at least that he was laboring under some strange emotion. But Gridley's eyes were not observant at all; they were only hungry. He had fasted against his will for twenty-four hours, and his plump cheeks were pallid. He had a wolf within him that demanded all his attention. He saw in the boy only a means of satisfying his craving. "Jack!" he whispered, with his lips almost at the boy's ear and his eyes devouring his face, "I have always been good to you. I want you to do something. It is a little thing," he repeated feverishly. "It is a nothing. Just----" He had got so far--and alas! for him, no farther--when a harsh, discordant laugh behind him caused him to straighten himself as if an unseen hand had propelled him. "Let the child alone!" Mistress Gridley cried from the door; "do you hear me? I will have no plotting and colloguing in my house! And do you, Jack, come here!" There was a world of sarcasm in the woman's gibing tone; and it cut the butler like a knife. He crept away with a savage glare in his eyes. The boy went slowly to the door with thoughts happily diverted from the weighty issues which had a moment before overburdened him. The incident was, indeed, his salvation; for, though the woman could not fail to remark his embarrassment, she naturally set it down to the wrong cause, supposing merely that the butler had been trying to corrupt him.