She came to him late in the evening when his sister and father had just left him, and sitting with her hand upon his, spoke one word, which perhaps had more weight with Harry than any word that had yet been spoken.  “Have you slept, dear?” she said.

“A little before my father came in.”

“My darling,” she said, “you will be true to Florence; will you not?” Then there was a pause.  “My own Harry, tell me that you will be true when your truth is due.”

“I will, mother,” he said.

“My own boy; my darling boy; my own true gentleman!” Harry felt that he did not deserve the praise; but praise undeserved, though it may be satire in disguise, is often very useful.

Chapter XLI

Going To Norway

On the next day Harry was not better, but the doctor said that there was no cause for alarm.  He was suffering from a low fever, and his sister had better be kept out of his room.  He would not sleep, and was restless, and it might be some time before he could return to London.

Early in the day the rector came into his son’s bedroom, and told him and his mother, who was there, the news which he had just heard from the great house.  “Hugh has come home,” he said, “and is going out yachting for the rest of the Summer.  They are going to Norway in Jack Stuart’s yacht.  Archie is going with them.”  Now Archie was known to be a great man in a yacht, cognizant of ropes, well up in booms and spars, very intimate with bolts, and one to whose hands a tiller came as naturally as did the saddle of a steeple-chase horse to the legs of his friend Doodles.  “They are going to fish,” said the rector.

“But Jack Stuart’s yacht is only a river boat—­or just big enough for Cowes harbor, but nothing more,” said Harry, roused in his bed to some excitement by the news.

“I know nothing about Jack Stuart or his boat either,” said the rector; “but that’s what they told me.  He’s down here, at any rate, for I saw the servant that came with him.”

“What a shame it is,” said Mrs. Clavering—­“a scandalous shame.”

“You mean his going away?” said the rector.

“Of course I do; his leaving her here by herself; all alone.  He can have no heart; after losing her child and suffering as she has done.  It makes me ashamed of my own name.”

“You can’t alter him, my dear.  He has his good qualities and his bad—­and the bad ones are by far the more conspicuous.”

“I don’t know any good qualities he has.”

“He does not get into debt.  He will not destroy the property.  He will leave the family after him as well off as it was before him—­and though he is a hard man, he does nothing actively cruel.  Think of Lord Ongar, and then you’ll remember that there are worse men than Hugh.  Not that I like him.  I am never comfortable for a moment in his presence.  I always feel that he wants to quarrel with me, and that I almost want to quarrel with him.”