Loman, who had got a cough already, was the first to show distress, and he soon became so cold and numbed that Oliver grew alarmed. They would be better walking than sitting still in that jolting cart a night like this. So, much against their own inclination and the advice of the carman, who characterised the proceedings as "tomfoolery," they alighted, and attempted to take the short cut across the fields to Saint Dominic's. Short cut, indeed! It was indeed a sarcastic name for the road those two boys took that terrible night. Oliver could never recollect all that happened those few hours. He was conscious of the tremendous storm, of the hopeless losing of their way, and of Loman's relapse into a state of half-unconsciousness, in the midst of which he constantly begged to be allowed to lie down and sleep. To prevent this was Oliver's principal occupation during that fearful time. More than once he was forced into a hand-to-hand struggle to keep his companion from his purpose. To let him lie down and sleep on such a night would be, he knew, to leave him to certain death. At any cost he must be kept moving. At last the storm fairly vanquished them. Even Oliver began to grow half-hearted in his determination. He took off his own coat and waistcoat and pat them on his comrade, who by this time was stupid with cold and exhaustion. A few minutes longer and both might have given themselves up, when suddenly there flickered a light before them. All Oliver could do was to shout. He had no power left to drag Loman farther, and leave him he would not. He shouted, and the reader knows who heard that shout, and what the answer was. Such was Oliver's story, and it needed little amplification. If it had, the only boy who could have added to it was in no position to do so. For four weeks after that night Loman lay ill with rheumatic fever, so ill that more than once those who watched him despaired of his recovery. But he did recover, and left Saint Dominic's a convalescent, and, better still, truly penitent, looking away from self and his own poor efforts to Him, the World's Great Burden Bearer, whose blood "cleanseth us from all sin." His schoolfellows saw him no more; did not know, indeed, when he left them. Only one of them shook hands with him at the door of the old school as he went. That boy was Oliver Greenfield. CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT. GOOD-BYE TO SAINT DOMINIC'S. And now, reader, we are at the end of our story, and there only remain the usual "last words" before we say good-bye.