There was nothing to be done but to wait, and wait, and wait. Robert had mounted a fresh horse and had gone off to scour the country, wondering not a little that there should be such a fuss about a day's fishing.

Five o'clock came, and afternoon tea, usually the pleasantest hour of the day; for in this summer-time the five o'clock tea-table was prepared in the rose garden in front of the drawing-room, under a j.a.panese umbrella, and in the shade of a screen of magnolia and Portugal laurel, mock orange and guelder rose, that had been growing for half a century. To-day Lady Palliscr and her step-daughter took their tea in silent dejection. They had grown weary of comforting each other--weary of all hopeful speculations.

It was on the stroke of six--the boy and his companion had been away nearly twelve hours. They could do nothing but wait.

Suddenly they heard voices--two or three voices talking excitedly and all together--and then a shrill sweet cry in a voice they both knew so well.

'He is alive!' cried f.a.n.n.y Palliser, starting up and rushing towards the house.

She had scarcely gone half-a-dozen steps when Rogers came out, crimson, puffing with excitement, leading Vernon by the arm.

'Here he is, my lady, safe and sound!' said Rogers; 'but he has had a rare drenching--the sooner we put him to bed the better.'

'Yes, yes, he must go to bed this instant. Oh, thank G.o.d, my darling, my darling! Oh, you naughty boy, how could you give me such a fright! You have almost broken your poor mother's heart, and Ida's too.'

'Dear mother, dear Ida, I am so sorry. But I didn't go alone. I went with Brian. That wasn't naughty, was it?' the boy asked, innocently.

'Naughty to stay away so long--to go so far. Where have you been?'

'Bird's-nesting in the woods, and I have got a honey-buzzard's nest--two lovely eggs, worth ten shillings apiece--the nest is built on the top of a crow's nest, don't you know. First we went fishing, but there were no fish; and then I asked Brian to let me do some bird's-nesting, and we went into the woods--oh, a long, long way, and I got very tired--and we had no lunch. Brian had something in a bottle; he bought it at an inn on the road; I think it was brandy. He swore because it was so bad, but he didn't give me any; and when the storm came on we were on Headborough Hanger, and Brian and I lost each other, and I suppose he came straight home.'

'No, Brian has not come home.'

'Oh, dear,' said the boy; 'I hope he's not looking for me all this time.'

'Come, darling, you must go to bed; we must get off these wet clothes,'

said Ida, and Vernon's mother and sister carried him off to his room, where a fire was lighted, and blankets heated, and hot-water bottles brought for the comfort of the young wanderer.

The boy prattled on unweariedly all the time he was being undressed, telling his day's adventures,--how Brian had been frightened because he thought there were some men following them, who wanted to take Brian to prison. He did not see the men, but Brian saw them hiding behind trees, and watching and following them secretly.

'I was very tired,' said the boy, with a piteous look, 'and my feet ached, for Brian would go so fast. And I wanted to come home badly; but Brian said the men were after us, and we must double upon them; and we went round and round and round till we lost ourselves; and then Brian told me to rest on the trunk of a tree while he went a little way further to see if the men were really gone; and I sat and waited till I got very cold, but he did not come back; and then I went to look for him, and couldn't find him; and then I began to cry. I was not frightened, mother, but I was so tired.'

'My poor darling! how could Brian be so cruel?' sobbed the mother, hugging her boy, while Ida was preparing warm negus and chicken sandwiches for his refreshment.

'He wasn't cruel,' explained Vernon; 'he was frightened about those men, ever so much more afraid than I was. But I never saw any men, Ida. How was it Brian could see them, when I couldn't?'

'How did you find your way home at last, dearest?' asked Ida.

'I didn't find it. I should be in the wood still if it was not for Jack--Jack found me, and carried me across the Hanger on his back, and took me up to his cottage, and took off my clothes and dried them, and gave me some brandy in a teaspoon, and then wrapped me in a bear-skin, and carried me all the way here.'

'How good of him!' said Ida; 'and how I should like to thank him for his kindness!'

'He doesn't want to be thanked. He hates girls,' said Vernon, with perfect frankness. 'He just gave me into Rogers' arms and walked off. But I shall go and thank him to-morrow morning, and I shall take him my onyx breast-pin,--the one you gave me last Christmas, mother. You don't mind, do you?'

'No, dear; you may give him anything you like. But I think he would rather have a sovereign--or a nice warm overcoat for the winter. What would be the good of an onyx pin to him?'

'What would be the good of it! Why, he would keep it for my sake, of course!' answered Vernie, with a grand air.

Vernon had no appet.i.te for the chicken sandwiches, or inclination for _Madeira negus_. He took a few sips of the latter to please his womankind, but he could eat nothing. He had fasted all day, and now, in his over excited state, he had no power to eat. Lady Palliser took fright at this, and sent off for the family doctor, that fatherly counsellor in whose wisdom she had such confidence. The boy was evidently feverish, his eyes were too bright, his cheeks flushed. He was restless, and unable to sleep off his fatigue in that placid slumber of childhood which brings healing with its rythmical ebb and flow.

The dinner-gong sounded, and Brian was still missing, but at half-past eight he came in, and walked straight to the drawing-room, where Ida was sitting alone. Neither she nor her stepmother had sat down to dinner.

Lady Palliser was in her boy's room, waiting for the doctor.

'Oh, Brian, thank G.o.d you are safe!' said his wife, as he came slowly into the room, and sank into a chair. 'What a scare you have given us all!'

'Did you think I was drowned, or that I had cut my throat?' he asked, sneeringly. 'I don't think either event would have mattered much to anyone in this house.'

His manner was entirely different from what it had been last night. His words were cool and deliberate, his expression moody, but in nowise irrational.

'You have no right to say that; but people who say such things seldom mean what they say,' replied Ida, quietly. 'Had you not better go to your room at once and change your clothes, or take a warm bath. It is a kind of suicide to wander about all day in wet clothes as you have done.'

'Who told you I was wandering about all day?'

'Vernon told us.'

'Vernon!' He started, as if suddenly remembering the boy's existence; and then in an agitated manner asked, 'Did he come home? Is he all right?'

'He came home, thank G.o.d; at least, he was brought home. I doubt if he could have found his way back alone. I am afraid he is going to be ill.'

'Nonsense! a little cold, perhaps; nothing more. It was a diabolical day.

I never saw such rain--a regular tropical down-pour. But what is a shower of rain for a healthy boy?'

'Not much, perhaps, if he is able to change his clothes directly afterwards. But to be wandering about for hours in wet clothes, without food,--that is enough to kill a stronger boy than my brother.'

'It won't kill him, you may depend,' said Brian, with a cynical laugh; 'I should profit too much by his death: and I'm not one of fortune's favourites. He's tough enough.'

'Brian, you have no more heart than a stone.'

'Perhaps not. All the heart I had I gave to you, and you made a football of it; but "Why should a heart have been there, in the way of a fair woman's foot?" as the poet asks.'

'Had you not better go to your room and take off your wet clothes?'

repeated Ida.

She had no inclination to argue or remonstrate with a man whose mind was so evidently askew, who had long ago pa.s.sed the boundary line of principle and n.o.ble thought, and had become a mere creature of impulse, blown this way or that way by every gust of pa.s.sion,--so weak a sinner that her scornful anger was tempered by pity.

'If you are anxious I should escape a severe cold, perhaps you will be liberal enough to allow me a little brandy,' said Brian.

Ida was doubtful how to reply. She had been told to withhold all stimulants, and yet this was an exceptional case. Happily at this very moment the door was opened, and Mr. Fosbroke, the family doctor, was announced.

She ran to meet him. 'Vernon has had a severe wetting, and we are afraid he is going to be ill,' she said. 'I'll take you upstairs at once. Mamma is with him.'

As soon as they were outside in the hall she told him about Brian's request, and asked his advice.

'I think I would give him a small tumbler of grog after his wetting. To refuse would seem too severe. But take care he hasn't the control of the bottle.'

She ran back to her husband, told him she would take some randy and water to his room for him by the time he had hanged his clothes, and then she went with Mr. Fosbroke to in Vernon's room, that bright airy room overlooking the rose garden, which maternal and sisterly love had decorated with all possible prettinesses, and furnished with every appliance of comfort.

Mr. Fosbroke examined the boy carefully, and seemed hardly to like the aspect of the case, though he maintained the customary professional cheeriness.