Just then the peacocks screamed in the courtyard---they always screamed when visitors were approaching. Mrs. Gell looked up and the Speaker walked to the window and looked out without seeing anybody. But at the next moment the drawing-room door was thrust open and their eldest daughter, Isabella, with wide eyes and a blank expression was saying breathlessly, "It's Alick. He has run away from school." Alick came behind her, a pitiful sight, his college cap in his hand, his face pale, drawn and smudged with sweat, his hair disordered, his clothes covered with dust, and his boots thick with soil. "What's this she says--that you've run away?" said the Speaker. "Yes, I have--I told her so myself," said Alick, who was half crying. "Did you though? And now perhaps you will tell me something--why?" "Because Stowell had been expelled, and I couldn't stay when he was gone." "Couldn't you now? And why couldn't you?" "He was innocent." "Innocent, was he? Who says he was innocent?" "I do, Sir, because .... it was _I_." It was a sickening moment for the Speaker. He gasped as if something had smitten him in the mouth, and his burly figure almost staggered. "You did it .... what Stowell was expelled for?" he stammered. "Yes, Sir," said Alick, and then, still with the tremor of a sob in his voice, he told his story. It was the same that he had told twice before, but with a sequel added. Although he had confessed to the Principal, they had expelled Stowell. Not publicly perhaps, but it had been expelling him all the same. Four days they had kept him in his study, without saying what they meant to do with him. Then this morning, while the boys were at prayers they had heard carriage wheels come up to the door of the Principal's house, and when they came out of Chapel the Study was empty and Stowell was gone. "And then," said the Speaker (with a certain pomp of contempt now), "without more ado you ran away?" "Yes, Sir," answered the boy, "by the lavatory window when we were breaking up after breakfast." "Where did you get the money to travel with?" "I had no money, Sir. I walked." "Walked from Castletown? What have you eaten since breakfast?" "Only what I got on the road, Sir." "You mean .... begged?" "I asked at a farm by Foxdale for a glass of milk and the farmer's wife gave me some bread as well, Sir." "Did she know who you were?" "She asked me--I had to answer her." "You told her you were my son?" "Yes, Sir." "And perhaps--feeling yourself such a fine fellow, what you were doing there, and why you were running away from school?" "Yes, Sir." "You fool! You infernal fool!" The Speaker had talked himself out of breath and for a moment his wife intervened. "Alick," she said, "if it was you, as you say, who walked out with the girl, who was she?" "She was .... a servant girl, mother." "But who?" "Tut!" said the Speaker, "what does it matter who? .... You say you confessed to the Principal?" "Yes, Sir."