I didn't stop to explain the amazing way in which I had reached my destination. That story would keep. What I wanted to know was what had happened to him when my escape had been discovered, and why he had left school. I put the questions to him, not very coherently, for a sense of shame prevented me from asking, "What did they do to you?" But he took my meaning, and answered me, "They said a lot of things about me; publicly, of course. And they flogged me." "Flogged you!" I cried; nearly adding his own comment, "publicly, of course." "At least it was an experience," he said. "Oh, Worthing!" I exclaimed in remorse, feeling behind his calm words the disgust of the indignity still rankling in his mind. "Worthing, it was all my fault." "Look here, Tommy," he replied, "it was my own deliberate choice." "No!" I said. "Yes!" he answered curtly. "Please give me credit for knowing my own mind." He looked at me in his settled, uncompromising way, and I could say no more. I wrung his hand in silence, and there was a pause. I didn't dare ask for further particulars. Indeed there was no need. My imagination could fill in with abundant details the outline he had drawn for me. They had flogged him! Worthing, the soul of law and discipline! The thing seemed incredible. They had flogged him! His very pride seemed a shield sufficient to ward off such a calamity. But they hadn't spared him. I turned to him with a cry of gratitude, but he was saying, "The Captain was terribly uneasy about you when I told him you had escaped and disappeared." "Ah," I said; and wondered whether he would mention Jenny. "I told him," he went on, "that I would find you and send you back to him." "Yes," I said doubtfully; and added, "Is that why you followed me?" "Not exactly," he replied. "I had decided on that before. I had committed my offence and taken my punishment. There was nothing else to wait for. I made up my mind to leave the place as soon as the affair was over. I shall go to my uncle in London. But first I thought I should like to find you, Tommy." Again I wrung his hand, and in what stumbling words I could lay tongue to was trying to tell him how dear he was to me, but suddenly he pointed below where a schooner was staggering round the headland. But what I saw was a little boat already threading the channel into Ebb-Tide Pool, bobbing like a see-saw on the backs of the rearing waves. The tide was ebbing, and I wondered whether the boat would make the entrance, but as I looked it rose on a leaping crest and plunged through the narrow passage into the Pool, where it disappeared under the overhanging arch. But I had recognized the solitary oarsman, though his back had been towards me. It was my father.