ed, 'Now
then, Tom, let us hear. Where does this come from?'

'From the casualty ward at the Hotel Dieu.'

'And from--'

'He is dead,' said Tom, answering the unspoken question. 'You will
find it all here. Ethel, do I sleep here to-night? My old room?' As
he spoke, he bent to light a spill at the fire, and then the two
candles on the side-table; but his hand shook nervously, and though he
turned away his face, his father and sister saw the paleness of his
cheek, and knew that he must have received a great shock. Neither
spoke, while he put one candle conveniently for his father, took up the
other, and went away with it. With one inquisitive glance at each
other, they turned to the papers, and with eager eyes devoured the
written narratives of Tom himself and of the attache, then, with no
less avidity, the French reports accompanying them. Hardly a word was
spoken while Ethel leant against her father's knee, and he almost
singed his hair in the candle, as they helped one another out in the
difficulties of the crooked foreign writing.

'Will it be enough?' asked Ethel, at last, holding her breath for the
answer.

'If there is justice in England!' said Dr. May. 'Heaven forgive me,
Ethel, this business has tried my trust more than anything that ever
befell me; but it will all be right now, and righter than right, if
that boy comes out what I think him.'

'And oh, how soon?'

'Not a moment longer than can be helped. I'd go up by the mail train
this very night if it would do any good.'

Tom, who reappeared as soon as he had spared himself the necessity of
the narration, was willing and eager to set out; but Dr. May, who by
this time had gathered some idea of what he had gone through, and saw
that he was restless, nervous, and unhinged, began to reconsider the
expedience of another night journey, and was, for once in his life, the
person cool enough to see that it would be wisest to call Bramshaw into
their counsels, and only that night to send up a note mentioning that
they would do themselves the honour of calling at the Home Office the
next day, on matters connected with the intelligence received that
morning from the British Embassy at Paris.

Tom was disappointed; he was in no mood for sitting still, and far less
for talking. As a matter of business, he would elucidate any question,
but conversation on what he had witnessed was impossible to him; and
when Gertrude, with a girl's lightness, lamented ove