seat"
is too fine a name for it.'

'Is it quite near Bowshott?' asked Purvis.

'No, it's nine miles off,' said Peter, 'unless you ride across country.'

'I wish,' he said to Ross that evening as they sat together in the
corridor, 'that I had any one else to help me in this affair except
Purvis.'

Ross knew the whole story, and was as trustworthy and straightforward a
man as ever breathed. 'I wish you had,' he said cordially; 'but in his
own creepy fashion I believe Purvis is working for you as well as he
can, and he has an extraordinary knowledge of this country and its
language. You see, it is not as if you were looking for your brother
amongst the most respectable English colonists in the land. You may
have to hunt for him in some remarkably queer places, and it is there,
it strikes me, that Purvis will help you.'

'I wish the thing were settled one way or another,' said Peter, 'so
that I might know where I stand. You see, if my brother is alive----
Well?'

'Nothing, only I thought I heard something moving outside the
wire-netting, and I hate the way Purvis creeps about.'

'Purvis is putting his little boy to bed and hearing him say his
prayers,' said Toffy. 'He is a queer mixture.'

Rosa rose, and walking to the edge of the corridor peered out into the
pitch-black night.

'It 's so dark,' he said, 'I cannot see a thing.'

'Never mind,' said Peter, 'there are no wild beasts to spring at you
unawares. Do you remember poor Cranley, who was in Pitt's house at
Eton? Did you ever hear how he was killed in his veranda in India by a
tiger?'

'Yes,' said Ross absently, 'awfully sad thing. Do you know, Peter, I
believe I must walk round to the other side of the house and see if
that chap is really putting his child to bed.'

CHAPTER XIII

So much has been said and so much has been written on the subject of
the man who works and the woman who weeps, the man who fares forth and
the woman who waits at home, that it hardly seems necessary to begin a
chapter with another dissertation upon this theme. Lovers are
proverbially discontented in the adverse conditions of separation.
Peter Ogilvie would have given much to be at home in the winter
following his mother's death, and there is no doubt that Jane Erskine
felt that things would have been many times easier away from home. But
if these two persons had exchanged places their sentiments would
doubtless have been exchanged also, thus proving what a