ght, and
all damp and dreadful. In prison all alone for three years."

Mother's voice trembled a little and stopped suddenly.

"But, Mother," said Peter, "that can't be true NOW. It sounds like
something out of a history book--the Inquisition, or something."

"It WAS true," said Mother; "it's all horribly true. Well, then they
took him out and sent him to Siberia, a convict chained to other
convicts--wicked men who'd done all sorts of crimes--a long chain of
them, and they walked, and walked, and walked, for days and weeks, till
he thought they'd never stop walking. And overseers went behind them
with whips--yes, whips--to beat them if they got tired. And some of them
went lame, and some fell down, and when they couldn't get up and go on,
they beat them, and then left them to die. Oh, it's all too terrible!
And at last he got to the mines, and he was condemned to stay there for
life--for life, just for writing a good, noble, splendid book."

"How did he get away?"

"When the war came, some of the Russian prisoners were allowed to
volunteer as soldiers. And he volunteered. But he deserted at the first
chance he got and--"

"But that's very cowardly, isn't it"--said Peter--"to desert? Especially
when it's war."

"Do you think he owed anything to a country that had done THAT to him?
If he did, he owed more to his wife and children. He didn't know what
had become of them."

"Oh," cried Bobbie, "he had THEM to think about and be miserable about
TOO, then, all the time he was in prison?"

"Yes, he had them to think about and be miserable about all the time he
was in prison. For anything he knew they might have been sent to prison,
too. They did those things in Russia. But while he was in the mines some
friends managed to get a message to him that his wife and children had
escaped and come to England. So when he deserted he came here to look
for them."

"Had he got their address?" said practical Peter.

"No; just England. He was going to London, and he thought he had to
change at our station, and then he found he'd lost his ticket and his
purse."

"Oh, DO you think he'll find them?--I mean his wife and children, not
the ticket and things."

"I hope so. Oh, I hope and pray that he'll find his wife and children
again."

Even Phyllis now perceived that mother's voice was very unsteady.

"Why, Mother," she said, "how very sorry you seem to be for him!"

Mother didn't answer for a minute. Then she just said, "Y