From the wicket-gate had issued the figure of a man running. He wore no hat, and though apparently elderly, was progressing at a very fair rate of speed. But he had not run more than twenty yards before another man came bursting from the gate. "Why, it's the prisoner!" gasped Lionel, "and good heavens!--yes!" He turned swiftly to Beatrice. "It's the churchwarden! What on earth is he doing here?" "So it is," replied Beatrice without emotion. He wondered at her self-control. "They seem to be in a hurry." Robert was evidently in a very great hurry, but Tony had the advantage in years and sprightliness. He caught his quarry in a very short space, and seized him by the shoulder. Then the pair of them stopped, Robert obviously unwilling, and began to talk with much gesticulation on both sides. The onlookers of course could hear nothing of what was said, but from the pantomime Tony appeared to be expostulating, advising, entreating. Mr. Hedderwick seemed to be in a condition of irate panic. As a matter of fact, Tony was remonstrating with his comrade-in-arms for his cowardice, and urging him, for the sake of himself and the sex, to make a stand for the rights of man. "If you give in now, after your many heroisms with me," said Tony warmly, "I shall be ashamed of my pupil and disown him. Come! though you _have_ run, it's not too late for a recovery." "You don't know my wife!" panted Robert. "I do--I've spoken to her for three minutes, and I can guess what she's like. I know something about women, and I feel sure that if you stand up to her now you'll be boss in your house for good. If not, she will. It's now or never." "You--you're not joking, Mr. Wild?" said Robert piteously. "I'm really serious. Now, come along with me and talk to these people. We'll let your wife catch us here. An audience ought to give you courage. Mind!" he added, holding Robert by the arm as they began to walk toward the aeroplane, "there must be no weakening, however terrible she may appear. Be a man, and you'll triumph!" It was all very well to urge him to be a man, but Mr. Hedderwick had been through a very tense six hours. When he escaped from the vicarage he rushed straight for The Happy Heart. There he instructed Mr. Glew in a sentence of some five hundred words, without so much as a comma intervening, that he meant to retire to his room at once, that he was to be denied to all callers, that casual inquirers were to be told that he had gone to the station, that on no account must any one be allowed to come up-stairs, and that information was to be given when the coast was clear. "I'll explainitalllaterglewwhenihavetimebutrememberthatit's afiverinyourpocketifIcomethroughto-daysafe," he babbled, dashing furiously up-stairs. "Right, sir," responded Glew, a creature to whom the word "fiver" was all that was necessary by way of present explanation. Robert's bedroom door slammed and was locked behind him long before the "Right, sir" had died away.