“Well, then,” she cried, “don't ask me to help you to win Dora, that is all!” There was a pause; in the silence of the great house the wind moaned softly. It always moaned in the drawing-room, whether in calm or storm, from some undiscovered draught in the high ventilated ceiling. “I sometimes think,” said Arthur at length, in an awestruck voice, “that Jem may not be dead.” “Not dead! Arthur, how can you be so stupid?” She was not at all awestruck. Her denser, more sordid nature was proof against the silence or the humming wind. The greed of gain has power to kill superstition. His face puzzled her. Suddenly he cast himself back and hid his face in his hands. “Oh!” he muttered, “I can't do it, I can't do it!” In an instant his mother was standing over him. “Arthur,” she hissed, “you _know_ something?” “Yes,” he confessed in a whisper at length. “Jem is not dead?” she hissed again. Her voice was hoarse. “He was not killed in the disaster,” admitted Arthur. In his heart he was still clinging to the other hope subtly held out by Seymour Michael--the hope that in his simple intrepidity Jem had gone to his death. “Then where is he--where is he, Arthur? Tell me quickly!” Mrs. Agar was white and breathless. It was as if she had bartered her soul, and after payment, had been tricked out of her share of the bargain. She trembled with a fear which seemed to fill her world and extend to the other world to come. “He escaped from that action,” said Arthur, who, now that the truth was out, grew voluble like a child making a confession, “by being sent on in front with a few men. They escaped notice, while the larger body was attacked and massacred.” “Who told you this?” “I do not know. I cannot tell you his name.” “Arthur!” exclaimed Mrs. Agar nervously, “are you going mad? Do you know what you are saying?” In reply he gave a little laugh like a sob. “Oh yes,” he replied, “it is all right. I know what I am saying, though sometimes I scarcely believe it myself. If it was a hundred years ago one might believe it easily enough, but now it seems unreal.” “Then where is Jem? Was he taken prisoner? Those men are savages, aren't they? They kill--people when they take them prisoners.” “No, he was not taken prisoner,” said Arthur. Sometimes he lost patience in a snappy, feminine way with his mother. “Oh! tell me, tell me, Arthur dear! You are killing me!” “I will, if you will let me. It appears that Jem had made himself a name out there for knowing the country and the people, which is useful to the Government, because Russia and England both want the country, or something like that; I don't quite understand it.” “Oh, never mind! Go on!” interrupted Mrs. Agar, with characteristic impatience.