during his absence had turned Jeffreys adrift beyond recall. He had
known his secretary's secret, and had held it sacred even from his wife.
And watching Jeffreys' brave struggle to live down his bad name, he had
grown to respect and even admire him, and to feel a personal interest in
the ultimate success of his effort. Now, a miserable accident, which,
had he been at home, could have been prevented by a word, had wrecked
the work and the hopes of years, and put beyond Mr Rimbolt's power all
further chance of helping it on.

About a week after Mr Rimbolt's return, when all but Percy were
beginning to settle down again into a semblance of their old order of
things, Raby knocked at her uncle's door and inquired if he was busy.
She looked happier than he had seen her since his return. The reason
was easy to guess. The post had brought her a letter from her father.

"I thought you would like to see it," said she. "He has got leave at
last, and expects to be home at the end of September. Will you read the
letter?" added she, colouring; "there's something else in it I should
like you to see."

The letter was chiefly about the prospects of coming home. Towards the
close Lieutenant-Colonel Atherton (for he had got promotion) wrote:

"You ask me to tell you about poor Forrester and his family."

"He had no wife alive, and when he died did not know what had become of
his only son. The boy was at school in England--Bolsover School--and
met with an accident, caused, it is said, by the spite of a
schoolfellow, which nearly killed him, and wholly crippled him. He was
taken home to his grandmother's, but after she died he disappeared, and
poor Forrester had been unable to hear anything about him. It is a sad
story. I promised Forrester when I got home I would do what I could to
find the boy and take care of him. You will help, won't you?"

Raby watched her uncle as he read the passage, and then asked,--

"I asked father to tell me something about the Forresters, uncle,
because some one--it was Mr Scarfe--had told me that he believed
Captain Forrester was the father of an old schoolfellow of his at
Bolsover who had a bad accident."

"Is that all he told you?" asked her uncle.

"No," said Raby, flushing; "he told me that Mr Jeffreys had been the
cause of the accident."

"That was so," said Mr Rimbolt. "Sit down, child, and I'll tell you
all about it."

And her uncle told her what he had heard from Mr Frampton, a