“You can say what you like, but the sheep disappeared and you disappeared, and here you are sneaking round in the early morning. The case is as good as proved,” and the bullying ruffian kicked the boy brutally. The two men led him along to the old grange and locked him up in a small room, high up near the roof. Wilfred knew that the reeve had spoken truly. Young lads with no friends were not of much account, and nothing but a miracle could save him. He sat there for hours, as it were dazed and stunned, and then toward evening he opened his pouch and took out the little packet and unfastened it. It contained half a groat and a long lock of hair. “Oh, Joan,” he said, “I wonder what will become of you when I am gone. I wonder if any one will ever tell you what happened to me. Master Mitchell was quite right. I should not have come back. No, even for your sake it was better not to come. For now I have lost everything, everything. And there was I going to become a carpenter and lay by a plenty of money and come and marry you when I was big. They say a boy can’t love,” he said bitterly; “they know nothing about it;--I do not suppose they know what love is. If only I were dying for _you_, Joan, I should be quite happy, but to die for what I have not done...!” He threw himself on the floor and sobbed and sobbed until from the sheer physical exhaustion of the paroxysms of grief he fell asleep. Meanwhile Ian was anxiously awaiting his return. The strange feeling that had possessed him ever since the day that Aline had talked about it in the secret room and that lately had been somewhat less intense, came back stronger than ever. He could not explain it, he could not reason about it, he only knew that something terrible was in the air and that it did not only affect Wilfred or himself. So strong was the feeling that he did not wait till the next morning. He merely lay down for a few hours and set off soon after midnight, so as to reach Kirkoswald at dawn. It was one of the last places where he wished to be seen, but he seemed to be drawn by fate. He had grown a beard while at Holwick and he further disguised himself before starting by pulling out half his eyebrows, which were thick and bushy, and likewise the hair above his forehead for the space of half an inch. “No one would be able to recognise me, who did not actually know me,” he said. “I certainly do not answer to any description of myself that can have been sent around.”