Returning from school at dinner-time on the day following, Dick found Frank Hardy sitting in the parlour holding his mother’s hand.  Mrs. Hardy and Harry were also there, and a few people were loitering about the front, having called to congratulate Frank Hardy on his release; for Frank had been given a free pardon in the Queen’s name for the crimes it was now known he had never committed.

Dick found Frank looking older and graver, much more like his mother, whom he resembled in disposition too.  He greeted the boy quietly but with evident feeling.

‘It seems I owe my liberty to your devilment, old boy,’ he said later.

Dick was beginning to find the role of hero rather wearisome, and would gladly have returned to his old footing with the people of Waddy, but there was nevertheless a good deal of satisfaction in appearing as a person of importance in the eyes of the Hardies, and he accepted the implied gratitude without any excess of uneasiness.

‘Well, I’ve got to pay you out, my lad,’ Frank continued.  ’Your mother has been foolish enough to promise to be my wife, and that will place me in the responsible position of father to the most ungovernable young scamp in Christendom; and one of the conditions your mother makes is that I am to prevent you from saving any more lives and reputations.  What do you think of that?’

‘Oh, you’ll make a rippin’ father,’ said Dick.  That’ll be all right.’

‘Good.  Then it’s settled.  We have your consent?’

Dick nodded gravely.

‘Thanks for your confidence,’ said Frank laughing.  ’I think you’ll find me a fairly good sort as step-fathers go.’

Dick had no fears whatever on that point; he and Frank had been excellent friends for as long as he could remember, and Frank had been his champion in many semi-public disagreements about billy-goats; and besides, he was a reader whose judgment the boy held in the highest respect, and that counted for a great deal.

The boy had a message for Harry, and delivered it with great secrecy at the earliest opportunity.

‘She’s back at Summers’s, Harry,’ he whispered.  ’She gave Kitty a letter to give to me to give you.’

Harry tore the envelope with trembling impatient hands.  It contained only a short note:  ’Will you come to me at the gate under the firs to-night at eight?’ and was coldly signed, ’Your true friend,

C. S.’

CHAPTER XXIV

Harry awaited the approach of evening with burning impatience, and his heart was lighter than it had been for weeks.  He thought that now the distraction induced by her father’s danger, his arrest and his death, and the subsequent trials had departed, he would find her with a clear mind and responsive to his love, and it would be his pride and joy to teach her to forget her troubles and to make her happy.  Harry, who up to the time of meeting Chris after his