There was something indescribably desolate in the blank silence of the tiled house when Waghorn unlocked the door, and fumbled in the dusk for the tinder-box. No human being shared his dreary home, no animal kept him company or enlivened his solitary hours. It was undoubtedly owing to his loneliness that his tendency to gloomy fanaticism had, since his father’s death, so greatly increased. The one joy left him appeared to be this morbid and exaggerated desire to root out all that he deemed wrong, and to punish all those who withstood his fiery zeal. Without pausing to eat or drink, he kindled his lantern and stole quickly out into the street. Early hours were kept in those days, and all seemed still in the village; stepping cautiously, he soon descried in the dust the prints of horse-hoofs, and was eagerly following them up to see whether they turned in at the Vicarage, when Zachary suddenly emerged from the gate. “Good e’en to you, Waghorn,” said the clerk, in a more friendly tone than he usually employed towards the wood-carver. “Ha’ ye lost summat, that ye go groping like the woman that dropped her tenth bit o’ silver?” “Ay,” said Waghorn, “that’s just what I have done, but I shall find what I seek yet, never fear.” Zachary with apparent good nature swept his broad foot energetically to and fro among the dust, effectually wiping out all trace of the hoof-prints. “Better search by daylight,” he suggested. “And come now to the ‘Bell’ and have a pint o’ home brewed.” Waghorn deemed it prudent to accept the invitation, for he desired to get into Zachary’s confidence, and hoped that some day he might gather from the garrulous old man the information he eagerly sought. But on this particular night the clerk was on his guard, and the fanatic gained nothing by his plot. Meanwhile, in the tower room, Dr. Harford, to his great joy, found his son in far better case than he had dared to expect. Hilary’s good nursing and the patient’s healthy life and sound constitution had triumphed over all the other drawbacks, and although some weeks must pass before he really recovered, all danger to his life was practically over. The Vicar and Hilary listened with intense relief to the doctor’s verdict. “The question now is, whether we shall try to remove him,” said his father. “It seems unfair to let you any longer run the risk of sheltering a rebel. Yet I scarce know where we could take him; we should never get him to Hereford without his being made prisoner.” “Sir, don’t think of moving him. ’Tis hard, indeed, if the church tower may not afford him sanctuary,” said the Vicar. “If, indeed, there be any risk in the matter, I gladly take it.” “And how about his nurse? What hath she to say?” asked the physician, looking into the girl’s beautiful face. “Sir,” said Hilary, blushing vividly, “I am his betrothed wife, and only this very day we were saying that we wished the Vicar would wed us.”