CHAPTER III.

A DESPERATE PLAN.

THE twins eyed each other in consternation. Peevish fault-finding by their father was common enough, and they had grown quite used to it, but punishment was a thing well-nigh unheard of, and they had made the sudden discovery that any fault they might commit, any scrape into which they might fall, all counted for nothing. The only fault that was past forgiveness was a laughing word against this hobby of his, and what he deemed the honour of his house.

The children said not a word in protest. Out of the room they went instantly, Gerald glaring angrily over his shoulder at his father, Geraldine with her little dark head held very high, and her small nose tilted.

Up they went to their own bedrooms, but kept the door open between, so as to talk freely.

"Now then, what do you think of that, Dina?" exclaimed Gerald, standing in the doorway.

"Think of it? Why, of course it's unjust. We'd done and said nothing naughty a bit, and anyway it was only a joke, and couldn't hurt any old ancestors."

"Of course not," rejoined Gerald, "and I, for one, am not going to stand being punished when I don't deserve it."

Dina, did not respond; she was thinking intently.

Gerald went on. "Let's run away for the whole day, and don't come home till we've given him a jolly good fright."

"We'd only get punished worse when we got back," said Dina.

"Yes, I didn't think of that," admitted Gerald.

There was a pause of a few seconds, then Geraldine's quaint little face lighted up.

"Have you any money, Gerry," she asked, her eyes full of a new purpose.

"Only half-a-crown besides what's in the twins' box," replied the boy.

Now the twins' box was an old money-box, given them when they were quite tiny children. Their nurse taught them to save their pennies and put them into the slot in the lid. And later on, when relatives or friends, or on rare occasions their father, gave them a Christmas or birthday tip, these coins, too, were duly put, from force of habit, into the faithful old box. So, year after year, the money was dropped in and was forgotten.

"I meant to put this half-crown in the other day when mother sent it for our birthday," said Gerald, "but I changed my clothes in a hurry, and left it in my jacket pocket."

But Dina was not listening. She was thinking.

Presently she said, "That money's quite ours, isn't it, Gerry?"

"Rather!" replied Gerald with assurance. "But what have you got in your head, Dina?"

"Gerry," replied the child, "for ever so long I've had such a big want just here—" and she laid a small brown hand on her heart—"to see mother and ask and tell her all sorts of things. We've done without her too long, and things at home will be going wronger and wronger now we've fallen out with dad. She can't come to us; she isn't well enough, but, Gerry, why shouldn't—"

"Oh, I see, Twinnie!" cried Gerald. "I see! You want awfully to see mother, and so do I; and you think we had better run away."

"Yes," said Dina in a mysterious whisper, "just run away to mother."

The next morning found the twins with their plans made. Indeed they had been chattering half the night making their final arrangements. The money-box was opened, and, much to the children's delight, the contents proved to be about five pounds, in coins varying in value from a rare half-sovereign to a frequent halfpenny.

From an early tip-toe visit to Mr. Ellis's study, while the rest of the household was asleep, Gerald and Dina brought upstairs the big atlas where even small towns were easy to find, and the twins soon found on the map the place by the sea where their mother had for some time been staying. Then they put down on a slip of paper the names of all the towns in the direct line of travel between their home and the town for which they were bound.

"There," said Gerald, "that will be a guide to us. When we are able to walk, we will do so and save our money, and when we are tired, we can go by train or tramcar, if we can get one. I heard dad say the other day that it was only about a hundred and fifty miles, as the crow flies."

"It will be more for us, as we are not crows!" replied Dina.

"At night," said Gerald, "we shall have to sleep at inns or farmhouses, and buy food next morning to go on with."

"Yes, that's the way the children in the story-books do," replied Dina, with a comfortable sense of following good example.

"There's still one thing we've got to do before we go," said Gerald. "We must write a letter to dad. They always do, you know."

"Oh, yes, always," assented Geraldine out of her large experience; "and in the letter let's tell him why we're going, and where."

"We will," rejoined Gerald. "I'll do the writing—shall I?—because my hand's better than yours. Here goes then!"

"'Dear Dad—'"

"But he isn't dear!" protested Dina. "Don't let's begin by telling stories."

"All right. Then it shall be just 'Dad,'" and Gerald wrote as follows:—

"'Dad, youve hert our feelings dreffuly by punnishing us for nuthing we did rong for the saik of our nasty mussty old ansestars, so we're not goeing to remane to be bulied, but we're off to Mother who isn't ungust and unkinde. Dont come after us for we will never be taken alive.

"(Signed) THE TWINS."