"The mill house?" I answered. The mill stood nearly a quarter of a mile from Coton End, beyond the gardens, and in the direction of the village. I remembered vaguely that I had heard from the servants in old days some talk of a secret outlet leading from the house to it. But they knew no particulars, and its existence was only darkly rumored among them. "You did not know of the passage," Sir Anthony said, chuckling at my astonishment. "No, I remember. But the girl did. Your father and his wife went with her. He quite agreed in the wisdom of sending her away, and indeed advised it. On reaching the mill, if they found all quiet they were to walk across to Watney's farm. There they could get horses and might ride at their leisure to Stratford and wait the event. I thought it best for her; and Ferdinand agreed." "And my father--went with her?" I muttered hoarsely, feeling myself growing chill to the heart. Hardly could I restrain my indignation at Sir Anthony's folly, or my own anger and disappointment--and fear. For though my head seemed on fire and there was a tumult in my brain, I was cool enough to trace clearly my father's motives, and discern with what a deliberate purpose he had acted. "He went with her?" "Yes, he and his wife," the knight answered, noticing nothing in his obtuseness. "You have been fooled, sir," I said bitterly. "My father you should have known, and for his wife, she is a bad, unscrupulous woman! Oh, the madness of it, to put my cousin into their hands!" "What do you mean?" the knight cried, beginning to tremble. "Your father is a changed man, lad. He has come back to the old faith and in a dark hour too. He----" "He is a hypocrite and a villain!" I retorted, stung almost to madness by this wound in my tenderest place; stung indeed beyond endurance. Why should I spare him, when to spare him was to sacrifice the innocent? Why should I pick my words, when my love was in danger? He had had no mercy and no pity. Why should I shrink from exposing him? Heaven had dealt with him patiently and given him life; and he did but abuse it. I could keep silence no longer, and told Sir Anthony all with a stinging tongue and in gibing words; even, at last, how my father had given me a hint of the very plan he had now carried out, of coming down to Coton, and goading his brother into some offense which might leave his estate at the mercy of the authorities. "I did not think he meant it," I said bitterly. "But I might have known that the leopard does not change its spots. How you, who knew him years ago, and knew that he had plotted against you since, came to trust him again--to trust your daughter to him--passes my fancy!" "He was my brother," the knight murmured, leaning white and stricken on my shoulder. "And my father--heaven help us!" I rejoined. CHAPTER XXV. IN HARBOR AT LAST.