“As you wish to keep the matter secret, I shall ask no further questions; only, Digby may not think it quite fair.”
“He wishes it to be so, sir,” replied Hamilton, eagerly. “It is quite his wish now he knows I have proof that he is not the culprit.”
Dr. Wilkinson's face lighted up with an expression of great satisfaction, as he said,
“It does Digby credit.”
Hamilton was on the point of hazarding a remark on the impossibility of Frank's contemplating such a thing, when they turned a corner of the lane that brought them in sight of the playground wall and the farm-yard opposite. The doctor's attention was suddenly arrested by the figure of a boy, perched on the top of the high wall surrounding the latter, who was reaching downwards towards the top of a large hawthorn-tree that grew inside.
“Hey-day! Hamilton, who's that?” he exclaimed. “Do you recognize the figure? If my eyes deceive me not, it is Louis Mortimer. I have strongly suspected lately that I have been robbed more than once. It is Louis Mortimer.”
The doctor's tone assumed its ready sternness, and he quickened his pace. Hamilton could not doubt the evidence of his senses, but he felt miserably disappointed.
“I do not think Louis Mortimer would do so, sir,” he said, faintly.
“There he is, however, out of bounds,” said the doctor.
“Something else may have taken him there,” said Hamilton.