CHAPTER VII.

THE FOOTPRINT.

"I don't believe that he did it," said Mr. Curtis, thoughtfully, as he stood with his back to the mantelpiece in his own little study, with his hands behind him.

"I am convinced that he did not!" exclaimed Mrs. Curtis, from her seat by the table, where she was preparing some work for her girls' school.

"And on what do you found that conviction, my love?" asked the vicar.

"If the sailor had broken the windows, he would have said so at once," answered the lady. "That man could no more stoop to a falsehood than that pine—" she glanced out of the window—"could stoop to crawl on the ground like bindweed! Ned Franks has a soul above lying!"

"You speak very positively upon a very short acquaintance, my dear," said the vicar With a smile, for he had seldom seen his gentle wife roused to give an opinion with such animation.

"What were you yourself just telling Henry? Did you not say that you were struck by the singular frankness with which the sailor owned that he had been trespassing in the park, and that the ball was his, and with the dignity of truth with which he asserted his innocence concerning the glass? And I also have seen him tried, and bearing the trial in a manner that would make me take the sailor's word against that of a dozen other men. Was I not by when Lady Barton questioned Franks hard about her son? Did I not see the pain which her questions gave him! How he flushed and bit his lip, and yet from those lips an untruth could no more come than if they had been of marble! Oh, Henry, I am as sure of that young man's innocence as I am of my own."

"I'm afraid that we shall find it difficult to prove it, my dear."

"The way will be to find out who really did break the glass," said the lady. "I think it very likely that the mischief was done by one of the boys of our school."

"Nothing more probable," said the vicar, "but I see no way at present of discovering the real offender."

"I'll go to the park myself," exclaimed Mrs. Curtis, beginning hurriedly to put up her work. "I'll search all about the spot from which the stones must have been thrown, and see if I can pick up nothing, if I can find no clue to the secret. And you, dear Henry," Mrs. Curtis laid her hand on the arm of her husband, "you have a Bible-class with the boys this evening, let your subject be truth. You have such a power to convince, to persuade, you may lead the culprit to confess."

"I fear that you hope too much, Eliza," said the vicar, shaking his head.

"I cannot hope too much," cried the lady, "when my hope is in the mercy and justice of God, who can make all dark things light, and who will clear the guiltless. I'll go at once for my bonnet and shawl."

"The sun is very hot, still—"

"Oh! Never mind the heat," said Mrs. Curtis, as she hurried out of the room, first to pray for success, and then to take what other means she could to ensure it.

In about an hour the gentle little lady returned, looking heated and tired, but with an eager expression on her face as she reentered the study, where her husband was busy at his desk.

"Have you found anything, Eliza?" he asked, glancing up from his writing.

"Very, very little, but something," she said, taking out of her bag a bit of whity-brown paper, roughly cut into shape.

"What may this be?" asked the vicar, taking it up in his fingers.

"It is the size, the exact size, as well as I could manage to make it out, of a footprint which I found on one spot where the ground was a little less dry than in other places. It was just about a stone's throw from the conservatory of Sir Lacy."

"A single footprint!" exclaimed the vicar.

"And so faint that I passed the place thrice before I saw it all," said the lady. "But two things at least were clear; there were nails in the boot which made the mark, as in those which our village boys wear, and the foot that wore it, was a good deal smaller than that of a tall man like Ned Franks."

"There's something in that," observed the vicar, fixing his eyes thoughtfully on the paper. "But it by no means follows that the footprint was left by the person who broke the glass."

"Then you think the paper of no use," said the lady, in a tone of disappointment.

"I never said so; I trust that it may be of great use, my dear, and I thank you, not only for bringing it, but for the hint which you gave me in regard to my lecture this evening. I have been thinking over the subject."

"And praying, I am sure," said his wife.

"Ay," replied the vicar of Colme; "we can do nothing without God's blessing, and we can do everything if it be ours."