‘Tom Madison is come back,’ said the Vicar, as he sat beside Fitzjocelyn’s couch, a day or two after Lord Ormersfield had gone to London.

‘Come back—­where has he been?’ exclaimed Louis.

‘There!’ said the Vicar, with a gesture of dismay; ’I forgot that you were to hear nothing of it!  However, I should think you were well enough to support the communication.’

‘What is it?’ cried Louis, the blood rushing into his cheeks so suddenly, that Mr. Holdsworth felt guilty of having disregarded the precautions that he had fancied exaggerated by the fond aunt.  ’Poor fellow—­he has not—­’ but, checking himself, he added, ’I am particularly anxious to hear of him.’

’I wish there were anything more gratifying to tell you; but he took the opportunity of the height of your illness to run away from his place, and has just been passed home to his parish.  After all your pains, it is very mortifying, but—­’

‘Pains!  Don’t you know how I neglected him latterly!’ said Louis.  ‘Poor fellow—­then—­’ but he stopped himself again, and added, ’You heard nothing of the grounds?’

‘They were not difficult to find,’ said Mr. Holdsworth.  ’It is the old story.  He was, as Mrs. Smith told me, ’a great trial’—­more and more disposed to be saucy and disobedient, taking up with the most good-for-nothing boys in the town, haunting those Chartist lectures, and never coming home in proper time at night.  The very last evening, he had come in at eleven o’clock, and when his master rebuked him, came out with something about the rights of man.  He was sent to Little Northwold, about the middle of the day, to carry home some silver-handled knives of Mr. Calcott’s, and returned no more.  Smith fancied, at first, that he had made off with the plate, and set the police after him, but that proved to be an overhasty measure, for the parcel had been safely left.  However, Miss Faithfull’s servant found him frightening Mrs. Frost’s poor little kitchen-maid into fits, and the next day James Frost detected him lurking suspiciously about the garden here, and set Warren to warn him off—­’

Louis gave a kind of groan, and struck his hand against the couch in despair, then said, anxiously, ‘What then?’

’No more was heard of him, till yesterday the police passed him home to the Union as a vagabond.  He looks very ill and ragged; but he is in one of those sullen moods, when no one can get a word out of him.  Smith declines prosecuting for running away, being only too glad of the riddance on any terms; so there he is at his grandfather’s, ready for any sort of mischief.’

‘Mr. Holdsworth,’ said Louis, raising himself on his elbow, ’you are judging, like every one else, from appearances.  If I were at liberty to tell the whole, you would see what a noble nature it was that I trifled with; and they have been hounding—­Poor Tom! would it have been better for him that I had never seen him?  It is a fearful thing, this blind treading about among souls, not knowing whether one does good or harm!’