elief to her,
she felt first this rush of compassion; he himself, to whom it meant so
much less relief, had felt only that relief.

"He said he couldn't stand it; he told me that. But I never thought--Oh!
Poor man!" And, burying her face against his arm, she gave way.

Petrified, and conscious that John at the far end of the carriage was
breathing rather hard, Felix could only stroke her arm till at last she
whispered:

"There's nobody now for Derek to save. Oh, if you'd seen that poor man
in prison, Dad!"

And the only words of comfort Felix could find were:

"My child, there are thousands and thousands of poor prisoners and
captives!"

In a truce to agitation they spent the rest of that three hours'
journey, while the train rattled and rumbled through the quiet,
happy-looking land.

CHAPTER XXXV

It was tea-time when they reached Worcester, and at once went up to the
Royal Charles Hostel. A pretty young woman in the office there informed
them that the young gentleman had paid his bill and gone out about ten
o'clock; but had left his luggage. She had not seen him come in. His
room was up that little staircase at the end of the passage. There was
another entrance that he might have come in at. The 'Boots' would take
them.

Past the hall stuffed with furniture and decorated with the stags' heads
and battle-prints common to English county-town hotels, they followed
the 'Boots' up five red-carpeted steps, down a dingy green corridor,
to a door at the very end. There was no answer to their knock. The dark
little room, with striped walls, and more battle-prints, looked out on
a side street and smelled dusty. On a shiny leather sofa an old valise,
strapped-up ready for departure, was reposing with Felix's telegram,
unopened, deposited thereon. Writing on his card, "Have come down with
Nedda. F. F.," and laying it on the telegram, in case Derek should come
in by the side entrance, Felix and Nedda rejoined John in the hall.

To wait in anxiety is perhaps the hardest thing in life; tea, tobacco,
and hot baths perhaps the only anodynes. These, except the baths, they
took. Without knowing what had happened, neither John nor Felix liked to
make inquiry at the police station, nor did they care to try and glean
knowledge from the hotel people by questions that might lead to gossip.
They could but kick their heels till it became reasonably certain
that Derek was not coming back. The enforced waiting increased Felix's