cost much," Marco said, "and it will take us quickly."

They called one and got into it. Each of them had flushed cheeks, and
Marco's eyes looked as if he were gazing at something a long way
off--gazing at it, and wondering.

"We've come back!" said The Rat, in an unsteady voice. "We've
been--and we've come back!" Then suddenly turning to look at Marco,
"Does it ever seem to you as if, perhaps, it--it wasn't true?"

"Yes," Marco answered, "but it was true. And it's done." Then he added
after a second or so of silence, just what The Rat had said to himself,
"What next?" He said it very low.

The way to Philibert Place was not long. When they turned into the
roaring, untidy road, where the busses and drays and carts struggled
past each other with their loads, and the tired-faced people hurried in
crowds along the pavement, they looked at them all feeling that they
had left their dream far behind indeed. But they were at home.

It was a good thing to see Lazarus open the door and stand waiting
before they had time to get out of the cab. Cabs stopped so seldom
before houses in Philibert Place that the inmates were always prompt to
open their doors. When Lazarus had seen this one stop at the broken
iron gate, he had known whom it brought. He had kept an eye on the
windows faithfully for many a day--even when he knew that it was too
soon, even if all was well, for any travelers to return.

He bore himself with an air more than usually military and his salute
when Marco crossed the threshold was formal stateliness itself. But
his greeting burst from his heart.

"God be thanked!" he said in his deep growl of joy. "God be thanked!"

When Marco put forth his hand, he bent his grizzled head and kissed it
devoutly.

"God be thanked!" he said again.

"My father?" Marco began, "my father is out?" If he had been in the
house, he knew he would not have stayed in the back sitting-room.

"Sir," said Lazarus, "will you come with me into his room? You, too,
sir," to The Rat. He had never said "sir" to him before.

He opened the door of the familiar room, and the boys entered. The room
was empty.

Marco did not speak; neither did The Rat. They both stood still in the
middle of the shabby carpet and looked up at the old soldier. Both had
suddenly the same feeling that the earth had dropped from beneath their
feet. Lazarus saw it and spoke fast and with tremor. He was almost as
agitated as they were.

"He left