"Ha!" Master Bertie uttered that one exclamation in intense astonishment; then he said no more. But the pressure of his hand told me that he understood, that he felt with me, that he would help me. And that silent comprehension, that silent assurance, gave the sweetest comfort. "He must be allowed to go, then, for this time," he resumed gravely, after a pause in which I had had time to recover myself. "We will see to it. But there will be difficulties. You must be strong and brave. The truth must be told. It is the only way." I saw that it was, though I shrank exceedingly from the ordeal before me. Master Bertie advised, when I grew more calm, that we should be the first at the rendezvous, lest by some chance Penruddocke's orders should be anticipated; and accordingly, soon after two o'clock, we mounted, and set forth. I remarked that my companion looked very carefully to his arms, and, taking the hint, I followed his example. It was a silent, melancholy, anxious ride. However successful we might be in rescuing my father--alas! that I should have to-day and always to call that man father--I could not escape the future before me. I had felt shame while he was but a name to me; how could I endure to live, with his infamy always before my eyes? Petronilla, of whom I had been thinking so much since I returned to England, whose knot of velvet had never left my breast nor her gentle face my heart--how could I go back to her now? I had thought my father dead, and his name and fame old tales. But the years of foreign life which yesterday had seemed a sufficient barrier between his past and myself--of what use were they now? Or the foreign service I had fondly regarded as a kind of purification? Master Bertie broke in on my reverie much as if he had followed its course. "Understand one thing, lad!" he said, laying his hand on the withers of my horse. "Yours must not be the hand to punish your father. But after to-day you will owe him no duty. You will part from him to-day and he will be a stranger to you. He deserted you when you were a child; and if you owe reverence to any one, it is to your uncle and not to him. He has himself severed the ties between you." "Yes," I said. "I will go abroad. I will go back to Wilna." "If ill comes of our enterprise--as I fear ill will come--we will both go back, if we can," he answered. "If good by any chance should come of it, then you shall be my brother, our family shall be your family. The Duchess is rich enough," he added with a smile, "to allow you a younger brother's portion."