“My dear boy, be thankful, and go home and live!” said I, with the water in my eyes. I was half inclined to kiss, and bless, and cry over him in the foolishness of my heart. “I will,” said Maurice, in the fulness and effusion of his; and he kissed my hand with a congenial impulse, and went away abruptly, moved beyond speaking. He left me more profoundly and pleasantly touched than I had been for a long time. Perhaps I thought, with natural vanity, that I had a little--just a little--share in it. Dire must be the disappointment, and heavy the calamity, which should shrivel up Maurice Harley now into a college don. CHAPTER XXI. Another long period of home quietness, but great anxiety followed this. Bertie, of course, would not return while the crisis of affairs in India had not yet been determined; and we were so much the more anxious about him, since he had been restored to us, as it seemed, out of the very grave. Later he was seriously wounded, threatened with fever, and really in great danger, but got through that as he had through all the other perils of that murderous Indian war. He distinguished himself, too, to our great pride and delight, especially to the boundless exultation of Derwie, and gained both credit and promotion almost beyond the hopes of so young a man. But, in the meantime, we were both anxious and concerned, for we could not induce him to think that he had encountered his full share of the fighting, and might now, surely, with perfect honor and satisfaction bring his laurels home. “If the women and the babies are all safe on board the ships,” said Derwie, who was almost as reluctant to consent to Bertie’s return before the fighting was over as Bertie himself. During all this time I scarcely saw Alice; she avoided coming in my way; when we met, avoided speaking to me--avoided looking in my face when that was practicable--could neither forgive herself for having betrayed her feelings, nor me for having witnessed that betrayal. Altogether her feelings towards me and in my presence were evidently so uncomfortable, that out of mere charity and consideration I no longer visited Mrs. Harley’s as I had done, nor invited them to Hilfont. They still came sometimes, but not as they had done before. I began to fear that I had lost Alice, which, to be sure, was unkind of her, considering what very old friends we were; but she could not forget nor forgive either herself or me for those tears out of which she had been cheated over that supposititious grave where Bertie Nugent was not.