me."

Randal's smile was withering as he spoke. "Come on," he said, after a
pause,--"come on." Again the walk was quick, and the brothers were
silent.

They came at length to a little shallow brook, across which some large
stones had been placed at short intervals, so that the boys walked over
the ford dryshod. "Will you pull down that bough, Oliver?" said Randal,
abruptly, pointing to a tree. Oliver obeyed mechanically; and Randal,
stripping the leaves and snapping off the twigs, left a fork at the end;
with this he began to remove the stepping-stones.

"What are you about, Randal?" asked Oliver, wonderingly.

"We are on the other side of the brook now, and we shall not come back
this way. We don't want the stepping-stones any more!---away with them!"




CHAPTER V.

The morning after this visit of Frank Hazeldean's to Rood Hall, the Right
Honourable Audley Egerton, member of parliament, privy councillor, and
minister of a high department in the State,--just below the rank of the
cabinet,--was seated in his library, awaiting the delivery of the post,
before he walked down to his office. In the mean while he sipped his
tea, and glanced over the newspapers with that quick and half-disdainful
eye with which your practical man in public life is wont to regard the