“_Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores_:” these words came into the boy’s mind with a new and touching significance. If the dumb animals still loved him, surely he might hope for love from Above. “_When father and mother forsake me, the Lord taketh me up_:” these words also flashed upon his mind, and he prayed to his Heavenly Father for the first time since the fatal discovery of the robbery, and felt a ray of comfort illumine the darkness of his soul. It is strange how, in the hours of the greatest need, in seasons of sorrow or on the bed of death, the words of the Hebrew shepherd-king, of the fishermen of Tiberias, of the Carpenter of Galilee, strike upon the souls of men with soothing power. It is for these words that men then crave; and no one ever yet upon a deathbed asked to hear read a speech of Mr. Bradlaugh’s, a disquisition of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s, or a tract by old he-she Mrs. Besant! Next morning, after leaving an envelope on the table directed to his father, which contained the £10 note he had received the previous evening, Wilfred Manwaring was carried off to the railway station, and driven out into the wilderness of that world whereof he knew so little. The clerk stared when the young gentleman asked for a third class ticket to London, but he made no observation. The train arrived, and in five minutes the poor outcast was gone. His foes were they of his own household. His father had with his own hands drawn the veil of separation between himself and his son. And he never saw his son again. As he sowed, so did he reap. Never more, never more. CHAPTER XI. THE SQUIRE LEARNS THE TRUTH. THE return of the £10 note, which at first surprised and somewhat perplexed Mr. Manwaring, had the after effect of confirming his belief in his son’s guilt. “Had he not been well off for money,” he argued, “he would never have refused the sum I so liberally gave him.” A week, however, had scarcely elapsed since Wilfred’s banishment, when the Squire received a letter from Messrs. Prodgers and Sharpin, in which they informed him that they had made arrangements for his son’s apprenticeship at Yeovil, in Somersetshire, in conformity with his instructions, and would be glad to know when they might expect the young gentleman in town, as he was now several days overdue.