Away in the park some rooks cawed fussily over the choice of their night quarters. Nearer, a blackbird piped an evening song. They sounded restless and plaintive to the lonely boy, and he hid his face in his hands, covering eyes and ears that he might see nothing, hear nothing. Then into his mind there surged a recollection of the dear old free days at home, never to come again. Right in the midst of every memory stood Bob--his friend Bob whom he would never see again. That was the thought that broke his spirit, and had he been a girl he would have cried; but Eustace shed no tears--this sorrow was beyond them, for a boy.

Something hard suddenly struck him with a sharp tap on the shoulder, and, as he started back in surprise, fell with a clatter back on the gravel below.

Then Eustace gasped, rubbed his eyes, and stared, feeling as if he must suddenly have taken leave of his senses; for there in the drive, his hand poised ready to throw another stone if the first had missed its mark, stood Bob Cochrane.

CHAPTER XX.

BREAKING THE NEWS.

Before the boy had recovered sufficiently to make a sound, Bob said in a low, distinct voice,--

"Don't make a row, old man. It's all right; I'm not a ghost. I want you to get hold of your father for me without a soul knowing that you have seen me. Tell him I am waiting by the first drive gate, and want to speak to him at once. Mind no one else hears what you say. Seeing you is better luck than I expected."

He turned and was walking rapidly away across the centre gra.s.s plot before Eustace quite realized this was no dream, but a solid truth, and that something was required of him.

"Bob, Bob, how have you come here?" he called in a trembling voice.

But the figure only half turned with a warning gesture, and pa.s.sed resolutely on.

For a moment the boy was rooted to the spot. Was this thing real?

Could Bob possibly be there? The idea was incredible; yet his eyes, his ears, both bore witness to the fact. But how had it happened?

what did it mean?

With thoughts in a turmoil and heart beating to suffocation, he made his way to his father's dressing-room.

"I say, father," he said breathlessly, putting his head round the door at the answer to his knock, "are you nearly dressed?"

"All but my coat," said Mr. Orban, without turning from the gla.s.s where he was carefully arranging his evening tie. "Come in if you want to."

There was an open door into the bedroom, where Eustace knew his mother was certain still to be.

"I--I would rather speak to you out here," said the boy, "if you could be quick."

Mr. Orban turned a surprised face.

"Oh, if it is a secret I am sure mother will excuse our shutting the door," he said, and suited the action to the word. "Now come, out with it. Have you been getting into some sc.r.a.pe, old man?"

The boy looked so extraordinarily white that Mr. Orban began to be afraid something serious had happened.

"You are quite certain mother can't hear?" Eustace said in a low tone.

"Perfectly," said Mr. Orban, looking more deeply perplexed, for hitherto Mrs. Orban had shared all secrets; in fact, the children had gone more readily to her with their troubles than to him, because he had so little time for such things. "There hasn't been any accident to one of the others?" he added sharply, struck by a new idea.

"Oh no, no," Eustace said; "nothing like that. But, father," he went on, drawing very close, "I'm not to tell another soul--only you. Bob Cochrane is here. He is waiting for you down by the first drive gate, and wants to speak to you at once."

"Bob Cochrane!" repeated Mr. Orban, blankly staring at the boy.

"What are you talking about, child? You've been dreaming, or you've got a touch of fever."

He pa.s.sed his hand over Eustace's brow, and found it cool enough.

"But it's the truth, father," Eustace said. "I thought I was dreaming myself, and it feels awfully strange still. I was kneeling at the window with my head in my hands, thinking--thinking about home"--his voice faltered a good deal over the words--"when some one hit me on the shoulder with a stone, and I looked down and saw Bob."

"Impossible!" said Mr. Orban. "You've had a delusion because you were thinking about home. You were thinking so hard about Bob you fancied you saw him. Things like that do happen sometimes, you know. Bob is thousands of miles away, looking after the plantation; he couldn't by any earthly possibility be here."

Mr. Orban spoke so certainly that Eustace's faith in his own reason almost wavered; but if vision it were, it had impressed him strongly.

"I don't think I could have seen it so clearly if it had only been my own thought," he argued aloud. "Besides, he spoke; he said quite clearly, 'Don't make a row, old man; I'm not a ghost. I want you to get hold of your father for me without a soul knowing that you have seen me. Tell him I am waiting by the first drive gate, and want to speak to him at once. Mind no one else hears what you say. Seeing you is better luck than I expected.'"

The words were branded on his memory by the shock he had received, and now it was Mr. Orban's turn to become white.

"If it is so really," he said in an odd, unsteady voice, "he brings bad news. Something so bad has happened that he could not break it to me in a letter."

It flashed into Eustace's mind that Bob had looked awfully grave and queer--if Bob it really were, and no delusion! Suppose his father should go to the gate and find no one awaiting him--what then?

"You--you will go and see if he is there?" faltered the boy nervously.

"I am going at once," said Mr. Orban. "When you are dressed yourself, go down into the drawing-room as usual, as if nothing had happened." He opened the door into Mrs. Orban's room and said lightly, "There's a man just called to see me, dear. If I happen to be detained, make my apologies to the old people, and ask them not to wait dinner for me."

Mrs. Orban made a cheery, unsuspecting response, and he and Eustace left the room.

The twins and the Dixon pair always a.s.sembled in the drawing-room with every one before dinner was served, and there they awaited the summons to dessert, as a rule with books, in dreary silence.

When Eustace came down he found every one waiting for dinner. Mr.

Orban was not yet in, and Mr. Chase would not hear of beginning the meal without him.

"His friend can't in conscience keep him late at such an hour," he said. "Of course we will wait."

No one was very talkative. It seemed to Eustace as if something of the coming shadow were creeping over the community before the bad news could even be dreamed of by any one except himself. There was just the sort of deadly calm and stillness over everything that comes before a thunderstorm.

Nesta had curled herself up in a deep window-seat, well out of sight. Eustace guessed she had made such a fright of herself with crying she was afraid to show her face. He sat near the door into the great conservatory with a book, pretending to read. Really he could do nothing but wonder what terrible thing could be going to happen next.

Presently, just when Mr. Chase was getting a little restless, and Mrs. Orban began anxiously watching the door, Mr. Orban came hurriedly into the room.

"Forgive my being so late," he said in a voice that vibrated strangely; "but I am afraid I must detain you still for a few minutes. The fact is, a Queensland friend of mine has just turned up with--with some rather curious details about the wreck of the _Cora_. He thought it would pain us less to hear them by word of mouth than by letter, so he came himself."

"Very good of him, I'm sure," said Mr. Chase, looking surprised.

"Won't he stay and dine with us, and then afterwards--"

"Oh, of course he must stay the night!" cried Mrs. Chase hospitably; "and this evening we can talk things over quietly when the children have gone to bed."

"I think," said Mr. Orban, with a gravity that impressed every one deeply, "my friend would rather have his interview at once. He is anxious to get it over as soon as possible. I have asked him into the boudoir, Mrs. Chase. I thought we would talk there more quietly than here."

"Certainly," said Mrs. Chase, rising and leading the way to the boudoir, which opened off the drawing-room.

Every one looked utterly bewildered, and Mr. Chase just a little annoyed. It was most unprecedented that dinner should be so delayed. Eustace noticed his father whisper something to his mother; she started, flushed painfully, and he guessed Mr. Orban had told her who the visitor was.