“Then,” said the judge, quietly, “tell them that we will go with them.  It will be all right, Boyne.  Ellen, you and I will get back into the carriage, and—­”

“No!” Boyne roared.  “Don’t leave me, Nelly!”

“Indeed, I won’t leave you, Boyne!  Mr. Breckon, you get into the carriage with poppa, and I—­”

“I think I had better go with you, Miss Kenton,” said Breckon, and in a tender superfluity they both accompanied Boyne on foot, while the judge remounted to his place in the carriage and kept abreast of them on their way to the magistrate’s.

XXIV.

The magistrate conceived of Boyne’s case with a readiness that gave the judge a high opinion of his personal and national intelligence.  He even smiled a little, in accepting the explanation which Breckon was able to make him from Boyne, but he thought his duty to give the boy a fatherly warning for the future.  He remarked to Breckon that it was well for Boyne that the affair had not happened in Germany, where it would have been found a much more serious matter, though, indeed, he added, it had to be seriously regarded anywhere in these times, when the lives of sovereigns were so much at the mercy of all sorts of madmen and miscreants.  He relaxed a little from his severity in his admonition to say directly to Boyne that queens, even when they wished to speak with people, did not beckon them in the public streets.  When this speech translated to Boyne by Breckon, whom the magistrate complimented on the perfection of his Dutch, Boyne hung his head sheepishly, and could not be restored to his characteristic dignity again in the magistrate’s presence.  The judge gratefully shook hands with the friendly justice, and made him a little speech of thanks, which Breckon interpreted, and then the justice shook hand with the judge, and gracefully accepted the introduction which he offered him to Ellen.  They parted with reciprocal praises and obeisances, which included even the detectives.  The judge had some question, which he submitted to Breckon, whether he ought not to offer them something, but Breckon thought not.

Breckon found it hard to abdicate the sort of authority in which his knowledge of Dutch had placed him, and when he protested that he had done nothing but act as interpreter, Ellen said, “Yes, but we couldn’t have done anything without you,” and this was the view that Mrs. Kenton took of the matter in the family conclave which took place later in the evening.  Breckon was not allowed to withdraw from it, in spite of many modest efforts, before she had bashfully expressed her sense of his service to him, and made Boyne share her thanksgiving.  She had her arm about the boy’s shoulder in giving Breckon her hand, and when Breckon had got away she pulled Boyne to her in a more peremptory embrace.

“Now, Boyne,” she said, “I am not going to have any more nonsense.  I want to know why you did it.”