“Do you think she is still as homesick as at first?”

“Well, not quite, perhaps; but I never can get to talk to her, and I know it is a terrible sacrifice to her to live here at all, and I won’t have her forced into a style of thing against her conscience.  If they come to me, I shall tell them to take Mr. Bowater.”

“Poor Mr. Bowater!  He will have little heart.”

“Who else is there?  That fellow Moy would like it, I suppose.”

“That fellow Moy may have to change his note,” said Julius.  “I think we have the means of clearing Archie, when we can see how to use them.”

Miles gave a sort of leap as he stood by the fire.  “Tell me.  Archie!  I had no heart to write to him, poor fellow.”

“Write to him by all means, but say nothing here.”  And Julius briefly repeated what Gadley had said.

“I don’t see that the scoundrel Moy deserves any consideration.”

“I don’t know whether he does; but he has a good wife, ailing and sickly, and a daughter.  He has lived in good report these many years, and I think it is due to him and to old Proudfoot not to spread the report before giving him warning.  In fact, I am not sure whether we could proceed against him as things stand.”

“It is just what Raymond would have known,” said Miles, with a sigh; “but you are right, Julius, one ought to give him fair play.  Ah! what’s that, Jenkins?—­Note from Lord Belfort?  Wait for an answer.  Can’t they give one any peace?”

While Miles was reluctantly answering his note, Julius, resolving to act before he was forbidden, mounted to Frank’s room, requested to speak with his mother, and propelled her into the outer room, leaving Anne on guard.

“Now then, my dear,” she said, “I have known a talk must soon come.  You have all been very good to me to leave it so long.”

“I am come now without poor Miles’s knowledge or consent,” said Julius, “because it is necessary for him to know what to do.”

“He will give up the navy,” said his mother.  “O, Julius! does he require to be told that he—?” and she laid her head on her son’s shoulder.

“It is what he cannot bear to be told; but what drives me on is that Whitlock tells me that the Wil’sbro’ people want to bring him in at once, as the strongest proof of their feeling for Raymond.”

“Yes,” she raised her head proudly, “of course he must come forward.  He need have no doubt.  Send him to me, Julius, I will tell him to open letters, and put matters in train.  Perhaps you will write to Graves for me, if he does not like it, poor boy.”

She had roused herself into the woman of business, and when Miles, after some indignation at her having been disturbed, obeyed the summons, she held out her arms, and became the consoler.

“Come, my boy,” she said, “we must face it sooner or later.  You must stand foremost and take up his work for him.”