"I didn't want any one to find me out here," he said. "If some--some people came, there might be the dickens to pay. And Uncle John is up now, worse luck! He does not understand London ways, and he is the strictest old guy that ever wore silver shoe-buckles--you should see him on state occasions. Ask Johnny Ludlow there whether he is strait-laced or not; he knows. Johnny, this is Charley Lightfoot: one of us at Bart's." Charley turned to shake hands, saying he had heard of me. He then set himself to soothe Bevere, assuring him he would not tell any one where he was lying, or that he had been to see him. "Don't mind my temper, old friend," whispered Bevere, repentantly, his blue eyes going out to the other's in sad yearning. "I am a bit tried--as you'd admit, if all were known." Lightfoot departed. By-and-by the Squire and Mr. Brandon returned, and Mrs. Mapping gave us some lunch in her parlour. When the Squire was ready to leave, I ran up to say good-bye to Roger. He gazed at me questioningly, eyes and cheeks glistening with fever. "Is it true?" he whispered. "Is what true?" "That Uncle John has written for my mother?" "Oh yes, that's true." "Good Heavens!" murmured Bevere. "Would you not like to see her?" "It's not that. She's the best mother living. It is--for fear--I didn't _want_ to be found out lying here," he broke off, "and it seems that all the world is coming. If it gets to certain ears, I'm done for." Scarlet and more scarlet grew his cheeks. His pulse must have been running up to about a hundred-and-fifty. "As sure as you are alive, Roger, you'll bring the fever on again!" "So much the better. I do--save for what I might say in my ravings," he retorted. "So much the better if it carries me off! There'd be an end to it all, then." "One might think you had a desperate secret on your conscience," I said to him in my surprise. "Had set a house on fire, or something as good." "And I have a secret; and it's something far more dreadful than setting a house on fire," he avowed, recklessly, in his distress. "And if it should get to the knowledge of Uncle John and the mother--well, I tell you, Johnny Ludlow, I'd rather die than face the shame." Was he raving now?--as he had been on the verge of it, in the fever, a day or two ago. No, not by the wildest stretch of the fancy could I think so. That he had fallen into some desperate trouble which must be kept secret, if it could be, was all too evident. I thought of fifty things as I went home and could not fix on one of them as likely. Had he robbed the hospital till?--or forged a cheque upon its house-surgeon? The Squire wanted to know why I was so silent. When I next went to Gibraltar Terrace Lady Bevere was there. Such a nice little woman! Her face was mild, like Roger's, her eyes were blue and kind as his, her tones as genial. As Mary Brandon she had been very pretty, and she was pleasing still.