“Oh, but I can’t help it,” said Lisbeth; “it seems somehow so - so weird. For instance, this morning for breakfast he had first his usual porridge, then five pieces of bread and butter, and after that a large slice of ham - quite a big piece, Dick! And he ate it all so quickly. I turned away to ask Jane for the toast, and when I looked at his plate again it was empty, he had eaten every bit, and even asked for more. Of course I refused, so he tried to get Dorothy to give him hers in exchange for a broken pocket-knife. It was just the same at dinner. He ate the whole leg of a chicken, and after that a wing, and then some of the breast, and would have gone on until he had finished everything, I’m sure, if I hadn’t stopped him, though I let him eat as long as I dared. Then at tea he had six slices of bread and butter, one after the other, not counting toast and cake. He has been like this for the last two days - and - oh, yes, cook told me to-night that she found him actually eating dry bread just before he went up to bed. Dry bread-think of it! Oh, Dick, what can be the matter with him?”

“It certainly sounds mysterious,” I answered, “especially as regards the dry bread; but that of itself suggests a theory, which, as the detective says in the story, ‘I will not divulge just yet;’ only don’t worry, Lisbeth, the Imp is all right.”

Being now come to o1d Jasper’s cottage, which stands a little apart from the village in a by-lane, Lisbeth paused and held out her hand for the basket.

“Don’t wait for me to-night,” she said, “I ordered Peter to fetch me in the dog-cart; you see, I may be late.”

“Is the old chap so very ill ?”

“Very, very ill, Dick.”

“Poor old Jasper!” I exclaimed.

“Poor old Jasper!” she sighed, and her eyes were brimful of tenderness.

“He is very old and feeble,” I said, drawing her close, under pretence of handing her the basket; “and yet with your gentle hand to smooth my pillow, and your eyes to look into mine, I could almost wish - “

“Hush, Dick!”

“Peter or no Peter, I think I’ll wait - unless you really wish me to say ‘good-night’ now?” But with a dexterous turn she eluded me, and waving her hand hurried up the rose-bordered path.

An hour, or even two, does not seem so very long when one’s mind is so full of happy thoughts as mine was. Thus, I was filling my pipe and looking philosophically about for a likely spot in which to keep my vigil, when I was aware of a rustling close by, and as I watched a small figure stepped from the shadow of the hedge out into the moonlight.

“Hallo, Uncle Dick!” said a voice.

“Imp !” I exclaimed, “what does this mean? You ought to have been in bed over an hour ago !”

“So I was,” be answered with his guileless smile; “only I got up again, you know.”

“So it seems!” I nodded.

“An’ I followed you an’ Auntie Lisbeth all the way, too.”

“Did you, though; by George!”

“Yes, an’ I dropped one of the parcels an’ lost a sausage, but you never heard.”

“Lost a sausage!” I repeated, staring.

“Oh, it’s all right, you know,” he hastened to assure me; “I found it again, an’ it wasn’t hurt a bit,”

“Imp,” I said sternly, “come here, I want to talk to you.”

“Just a minute, Uncle Dick, while I get my parcels. I want you to help me to carry them, please,” and with the words he dived under the hedge to emerge a moment later with his arms full of unwieldy packages, which he laid at my feet in a row.

“Why, what on earth have you got there, Imp ?”

“This,” he said, pointing to the first, “is jam an’ ham an’ a piece of bread; this next one is cakes an’ sardines, an’ this one is bread-an’-butter that I saved from my tea.”

“Quite a collection !” I nodded. “Suppose you tell me what you mean to do with them.”

“Well, they’re for my outlaw. You remember the other day I wanted to play at being outlaws? Well, two days ago, as I was tracking a base caitiff through the woods with my trusty bow and arrow, I found a real outlaw in the old boat-house.”

“Ah! and what is he like?” I inquired.

“Oh, just like an outlaw - only funny, you know, an’ most awfull’ hungry. Are all outlaws always so very hungry, Uncle Dick?”

“I believe they generally are, Imp. And he looks ‘funny,’ you say?”

“Yes; I mean his clothes are funny - all over marks like little crosses, only they aren’t crosses.”

“Like this ?” I inquired; and picking up a piece of stick I drew a broad-arrow upon the path.

“Yes, just like that !” cried the Imp in a tone of amazement “How did you know? You’re awfull’ clever, Uncle Dick!”

“And he is in the old boat-house, is he?” I said, as I picked up an armful of packages. “‘Lead on, MacDuff!’”

“Mind that parcel, please, Uncle Dick; it’s the one I dropped an’ lost the sausage out of - there one trying to escape now!”

Having reduced the recalcitrant sausage to a due sense of law and order, we proceeded toward the old boat-house - a dismal, dismantled affair, some half mile or so downstream.

“And what sort of a fellow is your outlaw, Imp?”

“Well, I spected he’d be awfull’ fierce an’ want to hold me for ransom, but he didn’t; he’s quite quiet, for an outlaw, with grey hair and big eyes, an’ eats an awful lot.”

“So you saved him your breakfast and dinner, did you?”

“Oh, yes; an’ my tea, too. Auntie Lisbeth got awfull’ angry ‘cause she said I ate too fast; an’ Dorothy was frightened an’ wouldn’t sit by me ‘cause she was ‘fraid I’d burst - so frightfully silly of her!”

“By the way, you didn’t tell me what you have there,” I said, pointing to a huge, misshapen, newspaper parcel that he carried beneath one arm.

“Oh, it’s a shirt, an’ a coat, an’ a pair of trousers of Peter’s.”

“Did Peter give them to you?”

“‘Course not; I took them. You see, my outlaw got tired of being an outlaw, so he asked me to get him some ‘togs,’ meaning clothes, you know, so I went an’ looked in the stable an’ found these.”

“You don’t mean to say that you stole them, Imp?”

“‘Course not!” he answered reproachfully. “I left Peter sixpence an’ a note to say I would pay him for them when I got my pocket-money, so help me, Sam!”

“Ah, to be sure!” I nodded. We were close to the old boat-house now, and upon the Imp’s earnest solicitations I handed over my bundles and hid behind a tree, because, as he pointed out, “his outlaw might not like me to see him just at first.”

Having opened each package with great care and laid out their contents upon a log near by, the Imp approached the ruined building with signs of the most elaborate caution, and gave three loud, double knocks. Now casting my eyes about, I espied a short, heavy stick, and picking it up, poised it in my hand ready in the event of possible contingencies.

The situation was decidedly unpleasant, I confess, for I expected nothing less then to be engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle within the next few minutes; therefore, I waited in some suspense, straining my eyes to wards the shadows with my fingers clasped tight upon my bludgeon.

Then all at once I saw a shape, ghostly and undefined, flit swiftly from the gloom of the boat-house, and next moment a convict was standing beside the Imp, gaunt and tall and wild-looking in the moonlight. His hideous clothes, stained with mud and the green slime of his hiding-places, hung upon him in tatters, and his eyes, deep-sunken in his pallid face, gleamed with an unnatural brightness as he glanced swiftly about him - a miserable, hunted creature, worn by fatigue, and pinched with want and suffering.

“Did ye get ‘em, sonny?” he inquired, in a hoarse, rasping voice.

“Aye, aye, comrade,” returned the Imp; “all’s well!”

“Bless ye for that, sonny !” he exclaimed, and with the words he fell to upon the food devouring each morsel as it was handed to him with a frightful voracity, while his burning, restless eyes glared about him, never still for a moment.

Now as I noticed his wasted form and shaking limbs, I knew that I could master him with one hand. My weapon slipped from my slackened grasp, but at the sound, slight though it was, he turned and began to run. He had not gone five yards, however, when he tripped and fell, and before he could rise I was standing over him. He lay there at my feet, perfectly still, blinking up at me with red-rimmed eyes.

“All right, master,” he said at last; “you’ve got me!” But with the words he suddenly rolled himself towards the river, yet as he struggled to his knees I pinned him down again.

“Oh, sir! you won’t go for to give me up to them?” he panted. “I’ve never done you no wrong. For God’s sake don’t send me back to it again, sir.”

“‘Course not,” cried the Imp, laying his hand upon my arm; “this is only Uncle Dick. He won’t hurt you, will you, Uncle Dick?”

“That depends,” I answered, keeping tight hold of the tattered coat collar. “Tell me, what brings you hanging round here?”

“Used to live up in these parts once, master.”

“Who are you?”

“Convict 49, as broke jail over a week ago an’ would ha’ died but for the little ‘un there,” and he nodded towards the Imp.

The convict, as I say, was a tall, thin fellow, with a cadaverous face lined with suffering, while the hair at his temples was prematurely white. And as I looked at him, it occurred to me that the suffering which had set its mark so deeply upon him was not altogether the grosser anguish of the body. Now for our criminal who can still feel morally there is surely hope. I think so, anyhow! For a long moment there was silence, while I stared into the haggard face below, and the Imp looked from one to the other of us, utterly at a loss.

“I wonder if you ever heard tell of ‘the bye Jarge,’” I said suddenly.