Richard allowed a long minute to pass, during which the baronet waited anxiously for his voice, hardly recognizing it when he heard its altered tones. "If he has, I'll go; and I'll do it myself." "You would?" returned Master Ripton. "Well, I'm hanged!--I say, if you went to school, wouldn't you get into rows! Perhaps he hasn't found the place where the box was stuck in. I think he funks it. I almost wish you hadn't done it, upon my honour--eh? Look there! what was that? That looked like something.--I say! do you think we shall ever be found out?" Master Ripton intoned this abrupt interrogation very seriously. "I don't think about it," said Richard, all his faculties bent on signs from Lobourne. "Well, but," Ripton persisted, "suppose we are found out?" "If we are, I must pay for it." Sir Austin breathed the better for this reply. He was beginning to gather a clue to the dialogue. His son was engaged in a plot, and was, moreover, the leader of the plot. He listened for further enlightenment. "What was the fellow's name?" inquired Ripton. His companion answered, "Tom Bakewell." "I'll tell you what," continued Ripton. "You let it all clean out to your cousin and uncle at supper. How capital claret is with partridge-pie! What a lot I ate!--Didn't you see me frown?" The young sensualist was in an ecstasy of gratitude to his late refection, and the slightest word recalled him to it. Richard answered him-- "Yes; and felt your kick. It doesn't matter. Rady's safe, and uncle never blabs." "Well, my plan is to keep it close. You're never safe if you don't.--I never drank much claret before," Ripton was off again. "Won't I now, though! claret's my wine. You know, it may come out any day, and then we're done for," he rather incongruously appended. Richard only took up the business-thread of his friend's rambling chatter, and answered-- "You've got nothing to do with it, if we are." "Haven't I, though! I didn't stick in the box, but I'm an accomplice, that's clear. Besides," added Ripton, "do you think I should leave you to bear it all on your shoulders? I ain't that sort of chap, Ricky, I can tell you." Sir Austin thought more highly of the boy Thompson. Still it looked a detestable conspiracy, and the altered manner of his son impressed him strangely. He was not the boy of yesterday. To Sir Austin it seemed as if a gulf had suddenly opened between them. The boy had embarked, and was on the waters of life in his own vessel. It was as vain to call him back as to attempt to erase what Time has written with the Judgment Blood! This child, for whom he had prayed nightly in such a fervour and humbleness to God, the dangers were about him, the temptations thick on him, and the devil on board piloting. If a day had done so much, what would years do? Were prayers and all the watchfulness he had expended of no avail? A sensation of infinite melancholy overcame the poor gentleman--a thought that he was fighting with a fate in this beloved boy.