"Sorrow no longer," said the gentleman quickly. "Giles is alive!" "Alive!" Dick cried, so loud and so joyously that the man in the window took a step into the room, quite startled. "Alive and well," said Giles's master quietly. "Why did you never try to find out? Why, if we may enquire, did you never find your way back to your friends and learn the truth?" "I dare not, sir," said Dick, hanging his head. "Ha! the bogey of a proclamation? All a make-believe, my child. There was never anything but kindness waiting for you with Giles and his--master." "But I didn't know," said Dick. "Cousin Dorothy said it could not be true, indeed, but I did not believe her. She--she said my idea of my own importance was sadly exaggerated." He imitated her manner a little. "Nay, if you'd had the least idea of your own importance you'd have got back to us in spite of John Dent's trickery. 'Twas all John Dent, Dick. Why, Giles--he broke his heart when we failed to find you. And I--why," he said, touching his high forehead, with a smile, "I fancy a new wrinkle came here with puzzling about your so sudden disappearance. Yes, indeed!" Dick laughed. "So the Lady Dorothy did not believe the proclamation story?" resumed the gentleman. "No," said Dick, blushing. "She would have had me come to Arncastor weeks ago, but I would not. She said I was a coward--" He stopped abruptly, but went on in a second: "I must have been, too. If I'd come--but I dare not be taken, and--and disgraced before you and--and the others." "Yet you came to-day?" "To try and save her," Dick said. "She should not have called you a coward, I think," Giles's master observed. "But, come. Why does she want saving? We will have that part now." "She has promised to marry John Dent," Dick began; and whilst he told of his cousin's goodness, and John Dent's cruelty, the gentleman in white drew nearer, unobserved. "Sir, you will help me, won't you?" Dick entreated. The gentleman in white took a step forward, but Giles's master begged him to have patience a little longer, and he returned to his window in silence. "I will help you to the best of my ability," said Giles's master, taking Dick's hand kindly, "and for your sake. The lady herself seems of a variable temper. As I said before, she should not have called you a coward." "Ah, sir," Dick cried, "she's all goodness--all kindness! She never meant to hurt me, and she begged my pardon--she, a great lady. I love her very much, more than anyone, except Giles. We agreed on everything in the world, I think--except Giles," he added. "Ha!" said the gentleman. "And what ailed her Ladyship of Giles?" Dick explained as well as he could that it appeared that great ladies could not appreciate courage and virtue when they went in rags. And he felt the gentleman upon whose knee he leant shake with laughter.