“At least it is so much the worse for the poor old earth, if her doom is to stand still, while man improves and progresses from age to age.”

“May I ask one question, sir?” said Stangrave, who saw that their conversation was puzzling their jolly companion.  “Have you heard any news yet of Mr. Thurnall!”

Mark looked him full in the face.

“Do you know him?”

“I did, in past years, most intimately.”

“Then you knew the finest fellow, sir, that ever walked mortal earth.”

“I have discovered that, sir, as well as you.  I am under obligations to that man which my heart’s blood will not repay.  I shall make no secret of telling you what they are at a fit time.”

Mark held out his broad red hand, and grasped Stangrave’s till the joints cracked:  his face grew as red as a turkey-cock’s; his eyes filled with tears.

“His father must hear that!  Hang it; his father must hear that!  And Grace too!”

“Grace!” said Claude:  “and is she with you?”

“With the old man, the angel! tending him night and day.”

“And as beautiful as ever?”

“Sir!” said Mark solemnly, “when any one’s soul is as beautiful as hers is, one never thinks about her face.”

“Who is Grace?” asked Stangrave.

“A saint and a heroine!” said Claude.  “You shall know all; for you ought to know.  But you have no news of Tom; and I have none either.  I am losing all hope now.”

“I’m not, sir!” said Mark fiercely.  “Sir, that boy’s not dead; he can’t be.  He has more lives than a cat, and if you know anything of him, you ought to know that.”

“I have good reason to know it, none more:  but—­”

“But, sir!  But what?  Harm come to him, sir?  The Lord wouldn’t harm him for his father’s sake; and as for the devil!—­I tell you, sir, if he tried to fly away with him, he’d have to drop him before he’d gone a mile!” And Mark began blowing his nose violently, and getting so red that he seemed on the point of going into a fit.

“Tell you what it is, gentlemen,” said he at last, “you come and stay with me, and see his father.  It will comfort the old man—­and—­and comfort me too; for I get down-hearted about him at times.”

“Strange attraction there was about that man,” says Stangrave, sotto voce to Claude.

“He was like a son to him—­”

“Now, gentlemen.  Mr. Mellot, you don’t hunt?”

“No, thank you,” said Claude.

“Mr. Stangrave does, I’ll warrant.”

“I have at various times, both in England and in Virginia.”

“Ah!  Do they keep up the real sport there, eh?  Well that’s the best thing I’ve heard of them, sir!—­My horses are yours!—­A friend of that boy, sir, is welcome to lame the whole lot, and I won’t grumble.  Three days a week, sir.  Breakfast at eight, dinner at 5.30—­none of your late London hours for me, sir; and after it the best bottle of port, though I say it, short of my friend S——­’s, at Reading.”