"Why, I told you," said Boyce, testily, though as a matter of fact he had said nothing.

"They have got that man Hurd.

The ruffian has been a marked man by the keepers and police, they tell me, for the last year or more.

And there's my daughter has been pampering him and his wife all the time, and _preaching_ to me about them! She got Raeburn even to take him on at the Court.

I trust it will be a lesson to her." Wharton drew a breath of relief.