‘I did so; I saw the poor boy.’

‘What a comfort for his sister!’

’Poor fellow!  Mine was the first friendly face he had seen, and he was almost overcome by it’—–­and the strong face quivered with emotion at the recollection of the boy’s gratitude.

‘He is a nice fellow,’ said Jane.  ’I am glad you have seen him, for neither Mr. White nor Rotherwood can believe that he is not utterly foolish, if not worse.’

‘A boy may do foolish things without being a fool,’ said Sir Jasper.  ‘Not that this one is such another as his father.  I wish he were.’

‘I suppose he has more of the student scholarly nature.’

’Yes.  The enlistment, which was the making of his father, was a sort of moral suicide in him.  I got him to tell me all about it, and I find that the idea of the inquest, and of having to mention you, you monkey, drove him frantic, and the dismissal completed the business.’

‘I told them about it,’ said Fergus.

’Quite right, my boy; the pity was that he did not trust to your honour, but he seems to have worked himself into the state of mind when young men run amuck.  I saw his colonel, Lydiard, and the captain and sergeant of his company, who had from the first seen that he was a man of a higher class under a cloud, and had expected further inquiry, though, even from the little that had been seen of him, there was a readiness to take his word.  As the sergeant said, he was not the common sort of runaway clerk, and it was a thousand pities that he must go to the civil power—–­in which I am disposed to agree.  What sort of man is the cousin at the marble works?’

‘A regular beast,’ murmured Fergus.

‘I think,’ said Jane, ‘that he means to be good and upright.’

‘More than means,’ said Ada, ’but he is cautious, and says he has been so often deceived.’

‘As far as I can understand,’ said Jane, ’there was originally desperate enmity between him and his cousin.’

‘He forgave entirely,’ said Ada; ’and he really has done a great deal for the family, who own that they have no claim upon him.’

‘Yes,’ said Jane, ’but from a distance, with no personal knowledge, and a contempt for the foreign mother, and the pretensions to gentility.  He would have been far kinder if his cousin had remained a sergeant.’

‘He only wished to try them,’ said Adeline, ’and he always meant to come and see about them; besides, that eldest son has been begging of him on false pretences all along.’

‘That I can believe,’ said Sir Jasper.  ’I remember his father’s distress at his untruth in the regimental school, and his foolish mother shielding him.  No doubt he might do enough to cause distrust of his family; but has Mr. White actually never gone near them, as Gillian told me?’