"It was last Friday. Five days ago."
"Had the saved passengers been landed then?"
"Oh dear yes, and had come from Cork to England. Young Batty had."
"Then, Raymond, it was Hopper," said Mr. Trace, who was looking at matters through his own suspicious glasses; and his face seemed to turn of a grey hue. "Rely upon it, he was trying to ferret out whether I was in the neighbourhood. Who is this Mr. Henry?"
"Our German and French master. He's an awful rat. Just the fellow for a sneak to apply to for any dirty information."
"You must try and get the truth out of him—whether it was Hopper or not, and if so, where he is now. I'll wait for you here."
"What—now?" exclaimed Trace. "I—I don't suppose he'll tell me. I am not friendly with him."
"Make yourself friendly for the nonce, and worm it out of him," said Mr. Trace imperatively. "Raymond, I must be at some certainty. This is almost a matter of life or death."
Raymond went forward without another word; and with a curious sinking of the heart to which he was totally unaccustomed, and did not know what to make of. This sort of coming home of his father's was so very different from those past lofty visions of his. As to the possible arrest, hinted at, Trace went hot when he thought of it. His father consigned to an ignominious debtors' prison in the face and eyes of the college where he had played first-fiddle? Why, in appearance it would be half as bad as the back disgrace of that miserable Paradyne!
Conning his lesson as he went along—a civil request to Mr. Henry to satisfy him upon some German terminations that hopelessly puzzled him—Trace at length found himself in Mrs. Butter's garden, and closely contiguous to a young damsel who was dancing in the moonlight. Trace raised his cap: child though she was, the school treated her with due respect as their Head Master's daughter.