“Then you are ill,” she said. “You have caught one of those dreadful fevers. I see it now. Your eyes are so heavy you can scarcely look at me. You have been in some of the cottages, or in the back streets, where there is always fever; but Jervis shall run for the doctor.” “A fire in Mr John’s room directly, Jervis--directly, mind; and some boiling water to make him a hot drink--he has caught a bad cold. Oh, my dear, you are sure that is all? And, John, you have really, really come home--to stay? You don’t mean to stay?” “I don’t know what I mean,” he said. “I have left Camelford. I have come back like a piece of bad money. But, mother, don’t ask me any questions to-night.” “Not one,” she answered promptly; and then besieged him with her eyes--“Twenty miles, my dear boy! what a long walk! no wonder you are tired. But what put it into your head, John? Never mind, my dear. I did not mean to ask any more questions. But, dear me! where could you want to go that was twenty miles off? That is what bewilders me.” “You shall hear all about it to-morrow,” said John, rising to his feet. He was so tired that he staggered as he rose, and his mother turned upon him eyes in which another kind of fear flashed up. She grew frightened at his weakness, and at the pale smile that came over his face. “Yes, my dear, go to bed--that will be the best thing,” she said, looking scared and miserable. And it went to John’s heart to see the painful looks she gave him, though it was with a mixture of indignation and amusement that he perceived the new turn her thoughts had taken. He could not but laugh as he put his arm round her to say good-night. “It is not that either,” he said; “you need not mistrust me. Staying in Camelford will not answer, mother. I must find some other way. And I have had a long walk. I am better now that my head is under my mother’s wing. Good-night.” “I will bring you your hot drink, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford. She followed him in her great wonder to the foot of the stairs, and watched him go up wearily with his candle, and then she returned and made the hot drink, and carried it up-stairs with her own hands. Was it all over?--was he hers again?--her boy, with nobody else to share him? “If he only escapes without a heartbreak, I shall be the happiest woman in the world,” she said to herself, as she went down-stairs again, wiping tears of joy out of her eyes. Without a heartbreak! while John laid his head on the familiar pillow and felt as if he had died. He had no heart any longer to break. He must have something to do, and no doubt he would get up next day and go and do something, if it was only working in the garden; but as for the heart, that which gives all the zest and all the bitterness to life, that was dead. His life was over and ended, and it seemed to him as if he could never come alive again. CHAPTER XXVIII.