"Where's Vale?" roared Mr. Blair, supposing he had been with us. "But that prayers are waiting, I'd cane all four of you. Where are you going, Todhetley?" "Don't stop me, Mr. Blair," said Tod, putting him aside with a quiet authority and a pain in his voice that made Blair stare. We called Blair, Baked Pie, because of his name, Pyefinch. "Read the prayers without me, please Mr Blair," went on Tod. "I must see Dr. Frost. If you don't know what has happened to-night, sir, ask the rest to tell you." He went out to his interview with the Doctor. Tod was not one to shirk his duty. Seeing Vale's father and mother he had shrunk from; but the confession to Dr. Frost he made himself. What passed between them we never knew: how much contrition Tod spoke, how much reproach the Doctor. Roger and Miles, the man-servant and boy, were called into the library, and sent abroad: we thought it might be to search the banks of the river, or give notice for it to be dragged. The next called in was Sanker. The next, Lacketer. But Lacketer did not answer the call. He had vanished. Mr. Blair went searching for him high and low, and could not find him. Lacketer had run away. He knew his time at Worcester House was over, and thought he'd save himself from dismissal. It was he who had been the thief, and whom Sanker suspected. As good mention here that Dr. Frost got a letter from his aunt the next Saturday, saying the school did not agree with her nephew, and she had withdrawn him from it. Whether the others slept that night, I can't tell; I did not. Harry Vale's drowned form was in my mind all through it; and the sorrow of Mr. and Mrs. Vale. In the morning Tod got up, looking more like one dead than alive: he had one of his frightful headaches. I felt ready to die myself; it seemed that never another happy morning could dawn on the world. "Shall I ask if I may bring you some breakfast up here, Tod? And it's just possible, you know, that Vale----" "Hold your peace, Johnny!" he snapped. "If ever you tell me a false thing of a fellow again, I'll thrash your life out of you." He came downstairs when he was dressed, and went out, waiting neither for breakfast nor prayers. I went out to watch him away, knowing he must be going to Vale Farm. Oh, I never shall forget it. As Tod passed round the corner by the railings, he ran up against him. _Him_, Harry Vale. My sight grew dim; I couldn't see; the field and railings were reeling. But it only lasted for a moment or two. Tod's breath was coming in great gasps then, and he had Vale's two hands grasped in his. I thought he was going to hug him; a loud sob broke from him. "We have been thinking you were drowned!" Vale smiled. "I am too good a swimmer for that." "But you disappeared at once." "I struck back out of the river the instant I got into it; I was afraid you'd come in after me; and crept round the alder trees lower down. When you were all gone I swam across in my clothes; see how they've shrunk!"