"Meanwhile," said Randal, "I will seek Frank, and do my best with him.
Let me go now,--I will return in an hour or so."

"I will accompany you," said the parson.

"Nay, pardon me, but I think we two young men can talk more openly
without a third person, even so wise and kind as you."

"Let Randal go," growled the squire. And Randal went. He spent some
time with Frank, and the reader will easily divine how that time was
employed. As he left Frank's lodgings, he found himself suddenly seized
by the squire himself.

"I was too impatient to stay at home and listen to the parson's prosing,"
said Mr. Hazeldean, nervously. "I have shaken Dale off. Tell me what
has passed. Oh, don't fear,--I'm a man, and can bear the worst."

Randal drew the squire's arm within his, and led him into the adjacent
park.

"My dear sir," said he, sorrowfully, "this is very confidential what I am
about to say. I must repeat it to you, because, without such confidence,
I see not how to advise you on the proper course to take. But if I
betray Frank, it is for his good, and to his own father;--only do not
tell him. He would never forgive me; it would forever destroy my
influence over him."

"Go on, go on," gasped the squire; "speak out. I'll never tell the
ungrateful boy that I learned his secrets from another."