A sensitive, refined nature, whether implanted in man or woman, is almost sure to betray its emotions on the countenance. Such a nature was Arthur Channing’s. Now that the dread had really come, every drop of blood forsook his cheeks and lips, leaving his face altogether of a deathly whiteness. He was utterly unable to control or help this, and it was this pallor which had given rise to Tom’s concluding exclamation. Mr. Channing looked at Arthur, Mrs. Channing looked at him; they all looked at him, except Constance, and she bent her head lower over her plate, to hide, as she best might, her own white face and its shrinking terror. “Are you ill, Arthur?” inquired his father. A low brief reply came; one struggling for calmness. “No, sir.” Impetuous Tom, forgetting caution, forgetting all except the moment actually present, gave utterance to more than was prudent. “Arthur, you are never fearing what those wretched schoolboys said? The police are not come to arrest you. Butterby wouldn’t be such a fool!” But the police were in the hall, and Judith had come to the dining-room door. “Master Arthur, you are wanted, please.” “What is all this?” exclaimed Mr. Channing in astonishment, gazing from Tom to Arthur, from Arthur to the vision of the blue official dress, a glimpse of which he could catch beyond Judith. Tom took up the answer. “It’s nothing, papa. It’s a trick they are playing for fun, I’ll lay. They _can’t_ really suspect Arthur of stealing the bank-note, you know. They’ll never dare to take him up, as they take a felon.” Charley stole round to Arthur with a wailing cry, and threw his arms round him--as if their weak protection could retain him in its shelter. Arthur gently unwound them, and bent down till his lips touched the yearning face held up to him in its anguish. “Charley, boy, I am innocent,” he breathed in the boy’s ear. “You won’t doubt that, I know. Don’t keep me. They have come for me, and I must go with them.” CHAPTER XXIII. -- AN ESCORT TO THE GUILDHALL. The group would have formed a study for a Wilkie. The disturbed dinner-table; the consternation of those assembled at it; Mr. Channing (whose sofa, wheeled to the table, took up the end opposite his wife) gazing around with a puzzled, stern expression; Mrs. Channing glancing behind her with a sense of undefined dread; the pale, _conscious_ countenances of Arthur and Constance; Tom standing up in haughty impetuosity, defiant of every one; the lively terror of Charley’s face, as he clung to Arthur; and the wide-opened eyes of Annabel expressive of nothing but surprise--for it took a great deal to alarm that careless young lady; while at the door, holding it open for Arthur, stood Judith in her mob-cap, full of curiosity; and in the background the two policemen. A scene indeed, that Wilkie, in the day of his power, would have rejoiced to paint.