‘Was the letter for you?’ she asked.

He replied with a nod, and fell patiently to work on the dissection of his bony delicacy.  In five minutes Henry approached the table with a furtive glance at his elder brother.  But Richard had no remark to make.  The meal proceeded in silence.

When Richard had finished, he rose and said to his mother—­

‘Have you that railway-guide I brought home a week ago?’

‘I believe I have somewhere.  Just look in the cupboard.’

The guide was found.  Richard consulted it for a few moments.

‘I have to go out of London,’ he then observed.  ’It’s just possible I shan’t get back to-night.’

A little talk followed about the arrangements of the day, and whether anyone was likely to be at home for dinner.  Richard did not show much interest in the matter; he went upstairs whistling, and changed the clothing he wore for his best suit.  In a quarter of an hour he had left the house.

He did not return till the evening of the following day.  It was presumed that he had gone ‘after a job.’

When he reached home his mother and Alice were at tea.  He walked to the kitchen fireplace, turned his back to it, and gazed with a peculiar expression at the two who sat at table.

‘Dick’s got work,’ observed Alice, after a glance at him.  ’I can see that in his face.’.

‘Have you, Dick?’ asked Mrs. Mutimer.

‘I have.  Work likely to last.’

‘So we’ll hope,’ commented his mother.  ’Where is it? ’

’A good way out of London.  Pour me a cup, mother.  Where’s ‘Arry?’

‘Gone out, as usual.’

‘And why are you having tea with your hat on, Princess?’

‘Because I’m in a hurry, if you must know everything.’

Richard did not seek further information.  He drank his tea standing. 
In five minutes Alice had bustled away for an evening with friends. 
Mrs. Mutimer cleared the table without speaking.

‘Now get your sewing, mother, and sit down,’ began Richard.  ’I want to have a talk with you.’

The mother cast a rather suspicious glance.  There was an impressiveness in the young man’s look and tone which disposed her to obey without remark.

‘How long is it,’ Richard asked, when attention waited upon him, ‘since you heard anything of father’s uncle, my namesake?’

Mrs. Mutimer’s face exhibited the dawning of intelligence, an unwrinkling here and there, a slight rounding of the lips.

‘Why, what of him?’ she asked in an undertone, leaving a needle unthreaded.

‘The old man’s just dead.’

Agitation seized the listener, agitation of a kind most unusual in her.  Her hands trembled, her eyes grew wide.

‘You haven’t heard anything of him lately?’ pursued Richard.

’Heard?  Not I. No more did your father ever since two years afore we was married.  I’d always thought he was dead long ago.  What of him, Dick?’