“Don’t go, Miss Christie,” said she at once. “It is some trap, some trick; Mrs. Manners never sends messages but by her own boys. Don’t go.” “I don’t like not to go,” said I hesitatingly. “It may be something of importance, and Mrs. Manners has been so kind to me. Please let me go, Mrs. Rayner.” She shrank into herself, and leaned back again as the cook reappeared at the door, saying the boy said Mrs. Manners’s message was--would I make haste? “Of course you can go, Miss Christie,” said Mrs. Rayner listlessly. I ran upstairs and was down again ready for my walk in a few minutes. The boy was evidently prepared to accompany me; and the fog was so thick that I was glad of it, for he was more used to the turns of the road than I; and even he had to go very slowly and to keep close to the hedge. He kept urging me to make haste, however, and I followed him as fast as I could, while he turned every other minute to see that I was still behind him. The school was about half a mile from the Alders, among the first houses of the village. When I stumbled against a milestone which was, I knew, not far from our destination, the boy said-- “Here, miss, take care! This way.” And, taking a corner of my cloak, he led me round into a path which branched off to the left. “But you are going wrong,” I said. “It is straight on, I know--not up here. This is the way to Dunning’s Farm, half a mile off.” “It’s all right, miss,” said he. “I’m afraid of our being run over along the high-road now we’re so near the village. Come on, miss; it’s all right.” He was very impatient; and I followed him, not without some misgivings. We had groped our way up this lane for what seemed to me a very long time, when the boy stopped and whistled. “What are you doing that for?” said I sharply. But the boy, who, by making but a few steps forward, was lost to my sight in the fog, whistled again. I stood for a moment trembling with terror. Then the boy exclaimed angrily-- “Why, he ain’t here!” “He! Who?” I cried, in alarm; and at that moment I heard a crackling of branches, and saw dimly through the fog, a few yards in front of me, the figure of a man crashing through the hedge, and leaping down from the field into the road. Smothering a cry, I turned, and ran I knew not whither. It was Tom Parkes or Gordon, who had decoyed me out here to punish me for my discoveries, which Sarah must have told them about.