'You wish me to leave,' he said, as quietly as he could. 'I will go at once. You tell me that I am a pauper. Very well, I will work for myself; but I give you notice. I will search this matter out; it is not yet absolutely proved that father was killed. He might have been made a prisoner; his death has only been presumed. But I will make sure of it one way or the other. I will hunt for that will of which he wrote to me and to my stepmother. And when I find him or it I will return; till then, remember that I ask no help from either of you. I will fend for myself.'
He turned on his heel, closing the door noiselessly after him. Promptly he went to his room, packed his few valuables and a spare suit in a valise, not forgetting underclothing. Then he crossed to the stables and emerged a few moments later with his bicycle. A somewhat scared couple of conspirators watched him, as he pedalled down the drive and out through the gate.
'Pooh! Let him go. A good riddance!' blustered Ebenezer, blowing his nose.
'I'm afraid of him; he was always like that,' exclaimed Mrs. Clayhill tearfully. 'David is a most determined boy; he will search this matter to the bottom.'
'Which happens to be particularly deep,' ventured her husband. 'Come, Sarah, threatened people live long. Before he is anywhere near China we shall have the will proved, and the money will be ours. We can afford to laugh at the young idiot.'
They saw David swing out into the road and disappear past the village. From that moment for many a week, he was a dead letter to them. But distance did not help them. The fact that they were committing a wrong preyed on the newly wedded couple. In the course of a little while the memory of David had become to Ebenezer and his wife even more trying than his actual presence. The proving of the will, the free use of the money could not end the matter. Conscience spoke sternly and unceasingly to Mr. and Mrs. Clayhill.
CHAPTER II
The Road to London
It was approaching evening as David Harbor swung out of the drive gates of 'The Haven,' and turned his back upon the inhospitable house and the stepmother who had behaved so disgracefully to him. His head high, a queer sinking at the heart, but his courage undaunted for all that, he pedalled swiftly through the village of Effington, nodded to the sour old salt Jarney, who, by the way, always had a smile for David, sped past the 'Three Pigeons' public-house, where the local tittle-tattle of the place was dispensed, together with ale, and was soon out in the open country.