He's up in the mountains, so his mother tells me." Whereupon Todd had gulped down an imprecation expressive of his feelings and had gone about his duties, while St.George had buried himself in his easy-chair, his eyes fixed on vacancy, his soul all the more a-hungered for the boy he loved.

He wondered where the lad was--why he hadn't written.

Whether the fever had overtaken him and he laid up in some filthy hospital.

Almost every week his mother had either come herself or sent in for news, accompanied by messages expressing some new phase of her anxiety.

Or had he grown and broadened out and become big and strong ?--whom had he met, and how had they treated him ?--and would he want to leave home again when once he came back?
Then, as always, there came a feeling of intense relief.