"Well, yes--in a measure, Joseph," she patiently answered. "I only wished to spare you vexation. Oh, Joseph! if--if Hugh cannot be found, and--and all has to come out--who he is and what he wants here--remember that I wished nothing but to spare others pain." Tod's eyes were blazing with angry, haughty light. Spare _him_! He thought she was miserably equivocating; he had some such idea as that she sought (in words) to make him a scape-goat for her relative's sins. What he answered I hardly know; except that he civilly dared her to speak. "Do not spare _me_: I particularly request you will not," he scornfully retorted. "Yourself as much as you will, but not me." "I have done it for the best," she pleaded. "Joseph, I have done it all for the best." "Where is this man to be found? I have been looking for him these several hours past, as I should think no man was ever looked for yet." "I have said that I think he is not to be found. I think he is gone." "Gone!" shouted Tod. "Gone!" "I think he must be. I--I saw him just before dinner-time, here at this very stile; I gave him something that I had to give, and I think he left at once, to make the best of his way from the place." "And Hugh?" asked Tod savagely. "I did not know then that Hugh was missing. Oh, Joseph, I can't tell what to think. When I said to him one day that he ought not to talk nonsense to the children about corals and animals--in fact, should not speak to them at all--he answered that if I did not get him the money he wanted he'd take the boy off with him. I knew it was a jest; but I could not help thinking of it when the days went on and on, and I had no money to give him." "_Of course_ he has taken the boy," said Tod, stamping his foot. And the words sent Mrs. Todhetley into a tremor. "Joseph! Do you think so?" "Heaven help you, Mrs. Todhetley, for a--a simple woman! We may never see Hugh again." He caught up the word he had been going to say--fool. Mrs. Todhetley clasped her hands together piteously, and the shawl slipped from her shoulders. "I think, madam, you must tell what you can," he resumed, scarcely knowing which to bring uppermost, his anxiety for Hugh or his lofty, scornful anger. "_Is_ the man a relative of yours?" "No, not of mine. Oh, Joseph, please don't be angry with me! Not of mine, but of yours." "Of mine!" cried proud Tod. "Thank you, Mrs. Todhetley." "His name is Arne," she whispered. "What!" shouted Tod. "Joseph, indeed it is. Alfred Arne." Had Tod been shot by a cannon-ball, he could hardly have been more completely struck into himself; doubled up, so to say. His mother had been an Arne; and he well remembered to have heard of an ill-doing mauvais sujet of a half-brother of hers, called Alfred, who brought nothing but trouble and disgrace on all connected with him. There ensued a silence, interrupted only by Mrs. Todhetley's tears. Tod was looking white in the moonlight.