"It's a nice question," said Matt, "or rather, it's a nasty one. Still, you've only got your fears for evidence, and you must all have had your fears before. I don't think that even a bad conscience ought to hurry one into the catchpole business." Matt laughed again with that fondness he had for his father. "Though as for any peculiar disgrace in catchpoles as catchpoles, I don't see it. They're a necessary part of the administration of justice, as we understand it, and have it; and I don't see how a detective who arrests, say, a murderer, is not as respectably employed as the judge who sentences him, or the hangman who puts the rope round his neck. The distinction we make between them is one of those tricks for shirking responsibility which are practised in every part of the system. Not that I want you to turn catchpole. It's all so sorrowful and sickening that I wish you hadn't any duty at all in the matter. I suppose you feel at least that you ought to let the Board know that you have your misgivings?" "Yes," said Hilary, ruefully, with his double chin on his breast, "I felt like doing it at once; but there was my word to _him_! And I wanted to talk with you." "It was just as well to let them have their night's rest. There isn't really anything to be done." Matt rose from the low chair where he had been sprawling, and stretched his stalwart arms abroad. "If the man was going he's gone past recall by this time; and if he isn't gone, there's no immediate cause for anxiety." "Then you wouldn't do anything at present?" "I certainly shouldn't. What could you do?" "Yes, it might as well all go till morning, I suppose." "Good night," the son said, suggestively, "I suppose there isn't really anything more?" "No, what could there be? You had better go to bed." "And you, too, I hope, father." "Oh, I shall go to bed--as a matter of form." The son laughed. "I wish you could carry your formality so far as to go to sleep, too. I shall." "I sha'n't sleep," said the father, bitterly. "When things like this happen, someone has to lie awake and think about them." "Well, I dare say Northwick's doing that." "I doubt it," said Hilary. "I suspect Northwick is enjoying a refreshing slumber on the Montreal express somewhere near St. Albans about this time." "I doubt if his dreams are pleasant. After all, he's only going to a larger prison if he's going into exile. He may be on the Montreal express, but I guess he isn't sleeping," said Matt. "Yes," his father admitted. "Poor devil! He'd much better be dead." IX. The groom who drove Miss Sue Northwick down to the station at noon that day, came back without her an hour later. He brought word to her sister that she had not found the friend she expected to meet at the station, but had got a telegram from her there, and had gone into town to lunch with her. The man was to return and fetch her from the six o'clock train.