"I would spare anything to him," said Terry, fervently. "Julius, it is finer than going into battle!"

"I thought you did not care much for battles, Terry."

"If it was battles, I should not mind," said the boy; "it is peaceful soldiering that I have seen too much of. But don't you bother my father, Julius, I won't grumble any more; I made up my mind to that."

"I know you did, my boy; but you did so much futile arithmetic, and so often told us that a+b-c equalled Peter the Great, that Dr. Worth said you must not be put to mathematics for months to come, and I have told your father that if he cannot send you to Oxford, we will manage it."

A flush of joy lighted up the boy's face. "Julius, you are a brick of a brother!" he said. "I'll do my best to get a scholarship."

"And the best towards that you can do now is to get well as soon as possible."

"Yes. And you lie down on the sofa there, Julius, and sleep--Rose would say you must. Only I want to say one thing more, please. If I do get to Oxford, and you are so good, I've made up my mind to one thing. It's not only for the learning that I'll go; but I'll try to be a soldier in your army and Bowater's. That's all that seems to me worth the doing now."

So Julius dropped asleep, with a thankworthy augury in his ears. It is not triumph, but danger and death that lead generous spirits each to step where his comrade stood!

CHAPTER XXXII The Salvage

Frank was certainly better. Ever since that sight of Eleonora he had been mending. If he muttered her name, or looked distressed, it was enough to guide his hand to her token, he smiled and slept again; and on the Sunday morning his throat and mouth were so much better, that he could both speak and swallow without nearly so much pain; but one of his earliest sayings was, "Louder, please, I can't hear. When does she come?"

Mrs. Poynsett raised her voice, Anne tried; but he frowned and sighed, and only when Miles uttered a sea-captain's call close to his ear, did he smile comprehension, adding, "Were you shouting?" a fact only too evident to those around.

"Then I'm deaf," he said. And Anne wrote and set before him, "We hope it will pass as you get better." He looked grateful, but there was little more communication, for his eyes and head were still weak, and signs and looks were the chief currency; however, Julius met Eleonora after morning service, to beg her to renew her visit, after having first prepared her for what she would find. Eleonora was much distressed; then paused a minute, and said, "It does him good to see me?"

"It seems to be the one thing that keeps him up," said Julius, surprised at the question.

"O, yes! I can't--I could not stay away," she said. "It is all so wrong together; yet this last time cannot hurt!"

"Last time?"

"Yes; did you not know that papa has set his heart on going to London to-morrow? Yes, early to-morrow. And it will be for ever.

We shall never see Sirenwood again."

She stood still, almost bent with the agony of suppressed grief.

"I am very sorry; but I do not wonder he wishes for change."

"He has been in an agony to go these three days. It was all I could do to get him to stay to-day. You don't think it will do Frank harm? Then I would stay, if I took lodgings in the village; but otherwise--poor papa--I think it is my duty--and he can't do without me."

"I think Frank is quite capable of understanding that you are forced to go, and that he need not be the worse for it."

"And then," she lowered her voice, "it does a little reconcile me that I don't think we ought to go further into it till we can understand. I did make that dreadful vow. I know I ought not now; but still I did, in so many words."

"You mean against a gambler?"

"If it had only been against a gambler; but I was stung, and wanted to guard myself, and made it against any one who had ever betted!

If I go on, I must break it, you see, and if I do might it not bring mischief on him? I don't even feel as if it were _true_ to have come to him on Friday, and now--yet they said it was the only chance for his life."

"Yes, I think it saved him then, and to disappoint him now might quite possibly bring a relapse," said Julius. "It seems to me that you can only act as seems right at the moment. When he is his own man again, you will better have the power of judging about this vow, and if it ought to bind you. And so, it may really be well you do not see more of him, and that his weakness does not lead you further than you mean."

A tottering step, and an almost agonized, though very short sob under the crape veil, proved to Julius that his counsel, though chiming in with her stronger, sterner judgment, was terrible to her, nor would he have given it, if he had not had reason to fear that while she had grown up, Frank had grown down; and that, after this illness, it would have to be proved whether he were indeed worthy of the high-minded girl whom he had himself almost thrown over in a passion.

But there was no room for such misgivings when the electric shock of actual presence was felt--the thin hollow-cheeked face shone with welcome, the liquid brown eyes smiled with thankful sweetness, the fingers, fleshless, but cool and gentle, were held out; and the faint voice said, "My darling! Once try to make me hear."

And when, with all her efforts, she could only make him give a sort of smile of disappointment, she would have been stonyhearted indeed if she had not let him fondle her hand as he would, while she listened to his mother's report of his improvement. With those eyes fixed in such content on her face, it seemed absolutely barbarous to falter forth that she could come no more, for her father was taking her away.

"My dear, you must be left with us," cried Mrs. Poynsett. "He cannot spare you."

"Ah! but my poor father. He is lost without me. And I came of age on Tuesday, and there are papers to sign."

"What is it?" murmured Frank, watching their faces.

Mrs. Poynsett gave her the pen, saying, "You must tell him, if it is to be."

She wrote: "My father takes me to London to-morrow, to meet the lawyers."

His face fell; but he asked, "Coming back--when?"

She shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears, as she wrote: "Sirenwood is to be put up to auction."

"Your sister?" began Frank, and then his eye fell on her crape trimmings. He touched her sleeve, and made a low wail. "Oh! is every one dead?"

It was the first perception he had shown of any death, though mourning had been worn in his room. His mother leant down to kiss him, bidding Lena tell him the truth; and she wrote:

"I am left alone with poor papa. Let me go--now you can do without me."

"Can I?" he asked, again grasping her hand.

She pointed to his mother and Anne; but he repeated, "You--you!"

"When you are better we will see how it is to be," she wrote.

He looked sadly wistful. "No, I can't now. Something was very wrong; but it won't come back. By and by. If you wouldn't go--"

But his voice was now more weak and weary, tired by the effort, and a little kneeling by him, allowing his tender touch, soothed him, enough to say submissively, "Good-bye, then--I'll come for you"-- wherewith he faltered into slumber.

Rosamond had just seen her off in the pony carriage, and was on the way up-stairs, when she stumbled on a little council, consisting of Dr. Worth, Mr. Charnock, and Grindstone, all in the gallery. "A widow in her twenty-second year. Good heavens!" was the echo she heard; and Grindstone was crying and saying, "She did it for the best, and she could not do it, poor lamb, not if you killed her for it;" and Dr. Worth said, "Perhaps Lady Rosamond can. You see, Lady Rosamond, Mrs. Grindstone, whose care I must say has been devoted, has hitherto staved off the sad question from poor young Mrs.

Poynsett, until now it is no longer possible, and she is becoming so excited, that--"

Cecil's bell rang sharply.

"I cannot--I cannot! In her twenty-second year!" cried her father, wringing his hands.

Grindstone's face was all tears and contortions; and Rosamond, recollecting her last words with poor Cecil, sprang forward, both men opening a way for her.