Ignorant of all this, Jack was sometimes tempted to unkind thoughts of his relatives in England. He even occasionally allowed himself to think, with a touch of bitterness, that they were finding the Grayson money very convenient, and that it might go hard with them to give it up if he should reappear. But the thought, like snow in a warm climate, did not _rest_. Jack's was essentially a generous nature. It was an added wonder, however, even greater than the first, that they never answered the letter sent them through Thomassian. But wondering and watching was idle work; and Jack, now a man grown, began to ask himself why, if he really wanted to go to England, he did _not_ go? It would be difficult, and it might be dangerous, but all the better for that! What hindered his borrowing a horse, asking Hohannes to give him whatever remained--if anything did remain--of his father's money, hiring a Turkish servant, and making a dash for Aleppo? Once there, the Consul would help him; and soon after his return to England he would be of age, and able to act for himself. What hindered him? Certainly not the perils of the way, though these were very real. He had passed beyond that stage now, finally and for ever. The thought of peril, far from daunting him, now made his blood tingle in his veins. Then what hindered him? He was an Englishman, and he had his life to live, his inheritance to claim, his birthright to recover. But still more he was something else, and that something--not yet expressed, not yet acknowledged even in the depths of his own heart--held him fast in the little town by far Euphrates. At Shushan's first home-coming he had been very shy of her. But in brotherly intercourse that had worn off, and a pleasant "camaraderie" had grown up between them. He read English with her, using the two books he had, his father's Bible and "Westward Ho"; and she had an Armenian Bible which they used to compare with the English. Well she loved its sweet words of promise, and often she would point them out to Jack and to Gabriel, who generally shared the lessons. But their talks were not all grave; they had many a quiet laugh together over her broken English, and sometimes Jack would tell her stories of his own country, and of things that happened there. She in return would talk of Urfa: of the dear American school, of her beloved Elmas Stepanian, and her other friends. She would describe the American ladies of the Mission: tall, grave Miss Celandine, revered as a mother, and her bright young colleague Miss Fairchild; Jack's fair-haired lady of the ferry-boat, whom, however, he entirely failed to recognise from her description.