. He was very actively alive to outward form.

Since Mr. Aston had told him Aymer was a cripple Christopher had been
consumed with unspeakable dread. His idea of a cripple was derived
from a distorted, evil-faced old man who had lived in the same house
that had once sheltered his mother and him. The mere thought of it
made him sick with horror. And when the tall gentleman in black, who
had met them in the entrance hall and escorted him here, had opened
the door and put him inside, he had much ado not to rush out again. He
conquered his fear with unrecognised heroism, and this was his
reward.

He stood staring, with all his worshipful admiration writ large on his
little tired white face. Aymer Aston saw it and laughed. He was quite
aware of his own good looks and perfectly unaffected thereby, though
he took some pains to preserve them. But his vanity had centred itself
on one thing in his earlier life, and that, his great strength, and it
died when that was no more.

"Little Christopher," he said, "come and sit down by me: you must be
tired to death."

"Are you Mr. Aymer?" demanded Christopher, still staring.

"Yes, only you mustn't call me that, I think. I wonder what you will
call me?"

Christopher offered no solution to the problem.

"Would you like to live here with me?"

He looked round. A dim sense of alarm crept back. The room looked so
empty and unreal, so "alone." Without knowing why, Christopher, who
had never had a real home to pine for, felt miserably homesick.

Aymer watched him closely and did not press the question. Instead, he
asked him in a matter-of-fact way to shut the window for him.

The boy did so without blundering. The window-fastening was new to
him, and Aymer noticed he looked at it curiously and shut it twice to
see how it went. Then he sat down again and continued to gaze at
Aymer.

"I forgot, I was to tell you something," he said suddenly, his face
wrinkling with distress. "The other one--the gentleman who brought
me----"

"My father?"

Christopher nodded. "I oughtn't to have forgotten. He said he had to
go to the House, but he'd be back quite soon, he hoped."

"He's had no dinner, I suppose," grumbled Aymer.

"Yes, we had dinner at--I forget the name of the place--and tea. And
yesterday we had dinner too."

"That was wise," said Aymer gravely. "Where's Mr. Stapleton?"

"He went home by train this morning. I sat in his place all the time,
not at the back."

He paused