'How it is I hardly know.

I've come home, mother, because I was driven to it.

Things were against me out there, and went from bad to worse.' 'Then why didn't you let us know ?--you've not writ a line for the last two or three years.' The son admitted sadly that he had not.

He said that he had hoped and thought he might fetch up again, and be able to send good news.

Then he had been obliged to abandon that hope, and had finally come home from sheer necessity--previously to making a new start.