lights upon the matter had been looked into, the
father and son had been assured that, as soon as possible, a free
pardon should be issued, so drawn up as to imply a declaration of
innocence--the nearest possible approach to a reversal of the sentence;
and they further were told of a mention of his exemplary conduct in a
late report from Portland, containing a request that he might be
promoted to a post of greater influence and trust before the ordinary
time of probation had passed. Dr. May was eager to be at Portland at
the same time as the pardon, so to give Leonard the first intelligence,
and to bring him home; and he had warmly closed with Tom's offer to
look after the work, while he himself waited till the necessary forms
had been complied with. He had absolutely begged Tom's pardon for
going in his stead. 'It is your right,' he said; 'but, somehow, I
think, as I have been more with him, I might do better.' To which Tom
had assented with all his heart, and had added that he would not go if
he were paid for it. He had further taken care that the Doctor should
take with him a suit of clothes for Leonard to come home in, and had
himself made the selection; then came back with the tidings that filled
the house with the certainty of joy, and the uncertainty of expectation.

Nobody was, however, in such a fever as Tom himself. He was
marvellously restless all the morning. Gertrude asserted it was
because he was miserable at not venturing to set his father's study to
rights; and to be sure he was seen looking round at the litter with a
face of great disgust, and declaring that he was ashamed to see a
patient in a room in such a mess. But this did not fully account for
his being in and out, backwards and forwards, all the morning, looking
wistfully at Ethel, and then asking some trivial question about
messages left for his father, or matters respecting his own new abode,
where he kept on Dr. Spencer's old housekeeper, and was about to turn
in paperers and painters. He had actually brought a drawing-room paper
from Paris, a most delicate and graceful affair, much too lady-like for
the old house, as Daisy told him, when she pursued him and her sister
down to a consultation.

Late in the afternoon, as the sisters were coming up the High Street,
they met him setting out in Hector's dog-cart. 'Oh, I say, Ethel,' he
said, drawing up, 'do you like a drive out to Chilford? Here's a note
come to ask my father to see the