"
When my father had heard the story he said so little that he frightened me;
and my mother and sister exchanged anxious glances.
"Of course," Roger added, "we are convinced absolutely, and if that fellow
hadn't got away at Whampoa, we'd have proof of Kipping's part in it--"
"But he got away," my father interposed, "and I question if his word is
good for much, in any event. Poor Joseph Whidden! We were boys together."
He shortly left the table, and a shadow seemed to have fallen over us. We
ate in silence, and after supper Roger and my sister went into the garden
together. What, I wondered, was to become of us now?
That night I dreamed of courts and judges and goodness knows what penalties
of the law, and woke, and dreamed again, and slept uneasily until the
unaccustomed sound of some one pounding on our street door waked me in the
early morning.
After a time a servant answered the loudly repeated summons. Low voices
followed, then I heard my father open his own door and go out into the
hall.
"Is that you, Tom Webster?" he called.
"It is. I'm told you've two of my men here in hiding. Rout 'em out. What
brand of discipline do you call this? All hands laying a-bed at four in the
morning.
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