"Henry deserves a good thrashing," answered the clock-maker. "It may save him from the gallows. I shall tell John we all knew he was the guilty one, and why I consented to keep it from him for a time. You had better tell him, too."
"I can't! I can't! You don't realize how angry he'll be; and you know he says he'll never forgive."
Henry had heard enough. Trembling from head to foot, he crept back to his chamber; but he did not think of going to bed.
"I'll stay here till mother goes into her room, and then I'll run off. I know there are places enough better than this. At any rate, I wont stay here, where they're all against me, to be half killed by father."
Stealing to the closet, with his bare feet to the floor, he soon discovered his father's pocket-book in the same pocket where the keys had once been, and, taking from it five dollars, all the money it contained, he wrapped it in a paper, and lay down in his clothes.
"I know mother wont tell father a word about it to-night," he said, his teeth chattering, "and I'll be off before he's up. He said he shouldn't be at home till eleven, 'cause the moon wouldn't rise till late; so it will be light for me to run away."
[CHAPTER VIII.]
THE LIAR REFORMED.
"WHY don't Henry come down to his breakfast?" asked Mr. Drake, in a petulant tone.
"I'll call him now," answered the mother, with a sigh, starting for Henry's chamber.