"Yes?"
"Dartmoor! Princetown Prison," was the reply he received.
Rupert lay back and closed his eyes. He might have guessed. It was the irony of fate. They were taking him home, back to his own land, to Dartmoor.
To Princetown Prison. The great monument of granite that broods over the valley of the Dart, from whose barred windows, if a man could gaze, he would see Blackthorn Farm ... and the disused tin-mine with its hidden fortune waiting to be claimed.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.
The words Sir Reginald had spoken to John Dale when he visited him at Charing Cross hospital after the trial, returned fairly frequently to his mind for many hours afterwards when he reached his own home on Dartmoor.
"This thing might have happened to my boy." He recalled, too, the old yeoman's reply when he reminded Sir Reginald that his son was a gentleman—and therefore could not do a mean thing.
The Dales came of old yeoman stock; they could trace their family back as far, probably further, than the Crichtons. Old Dale was a gentleman right enough, and Crichton knew it would be impossible for him to do anything mean, much less dishonourable. Indeed, he had been the first to warn Sir Reginald that his daughter must never meet the baronet's son again.
Sir Reginald did not find it easy to believe that Jim had fallen in love with Marjorie Dale. He had to presume, like all parents, that he had been blind. His boy had never been in the habit of keeping anything from him.