“Oh, Ralph!” she cried, “our boy’s gone away!” She was ready, in her sympathy for him, in her sense of the shock the information must give him, to throw herself upon his neck that they might mingle their tears as if they had been the most devoted pair. But Joan held her back. Joan looked at her father with keen eyes, in which there was some gleam of triumph. “Lads have not the patience that women have,” she said. “When they’re insulted, if they cannot fight they turn their backs; that’s what Harry has done. He’ll never darken your doors again, be sure of that; nor would I if I had been like him, except for mother, poor dear!” “Oh, Joan, don’t say that! he’s gone I know--but that he’ll never darken our doors again--if I thought that it would break my heart.” “Mother, hold your tongue; my saying it will make little difference. He will never darken these doors again. You and me may see him many a day, in his own house, or with the other boys: but these doors,” said Joan, “he’ll never darken again. It’s borne in upon my mind that it will be long, long, before Harry Joscelyn is so much as heard of here.” “Don’t say that! don’t say that!” cried Mrs. Joscelyn, falling back, trembling and weeping, upon her chair. She was so pale and faint that Joan’s heart was moved; she went to her mother’s side to comfort her, as she never would have dreamt of doing in any other trouble that had ever befallen the too sensitive woman. Joscelyn stood and stared at them for a moment in unusual silence. The sight of Joan, always so calmly observant, more cynical than sympathetic, giving herself up to the task of consoling this weak mother, so unlike herself, struck him dumb. Joan! he could not understand it. And that Harry should have gone away had more effect upon him than he would have considered possible. He stood for a moment staring, and then he went out of the room without saying a word. CHAPTER XI. THE WOMEN’S PART.