"I'll not tell on't to a single soul, sir," said Dobbs, earnestly, standing straight in his brown stockings. "Nobody shall know on't from me. And I'm as glad as glad can be that you be alive and did not die in that fever." "We are all safe and sure, Caromel; not a hint shall escape us," spoke the Squire from the midst of his astonishment. "The first thing must be to get Duffham here." "Duffham can't do any good; things have gone too far with me," said poor Nash. "Once this disorder lays regular hold of a man, there's no hope for him: you know that, Todhetley." "Stuff!" said the pater. "I don't believe it has gone too far, only you've got moped here and think so. We'll have Duffham here at once. You boys can go for him." "No," dissented Caromel. "Duffham may tell the tale abroad. I'd rather die in peace, if I can." "Not he. Duffham! Why, you ought to know him better. Duffham will be as secret as ourselves. Do you suppose that he, a family doctor, has not many a weighty secret to keep? Come, be off, lads: and, mind, we trust _you_." Nash Caromel sighed, and said no more. He had been wanting badly enough to see a friend or two, but not to be shown up to the parish. We went out with Dobbs, who rushed into the copse to find his shoes. This discovery might never have ensued, I take it, had Charlotte Nave and the lawyer not been upset in the gig. They would have stood persistently in his light--perhaps have succeeded in locking him in by force! As it was, we had it all our own way. "How could you lend yourself to so infamous a deception?" cried the Squire to old Grizzel, following her into the pantry to ask it, when she returned from bolting the door after us. "I'm not at all sure that you could not be punished for it. It's--it's a conspiracy. And you, of all people, old Grizzel, to forget the honour of the Caromels! Why, you lived with his father!--and with his brother. All these years!" "And how could I tell again him when I was asked not to?" contended Grizzel, the tears dropping on to a tin saucepan she was rubbing out. "Master Nash was as dear to me as the others were. Could it be me to speak up and say he was not in the coffin, but only old things to make up weight! Could it be me to tell he was alive and hiding up aloft here, and so get him put in prison? No, sir; the good name of the Caromels was much to me, but Master Nash was more." "Now, come, old woman, where's the use of crying like that? Well, yes; you have been faithful, and it's a great virtue. And--and there's a shilling or two for you."