He missed Phillip’s companionship for more reasons than one, of which not the least was that without it he seemed entirely cut off from Elaine and Margaret. Several times the temptation to write to Margaret became almost irresistible. He did not yield to it, however, for it seemed to him that the agreement between them tacitly forbade it. His only intelligence of Elaine reached him through Corliss, from whom he received several letters during the winter term. But the news was scanty and unsatisfactory. Mrs. Ryerson’s health, Corliss wrote once, was causing uneasiness; she did not leave her room any more, and while she might live for a year or even two, she was practically helpless. John was glad to learn by a subsequent letter from the same source that Markham had moved over to Elaine. The overseer was a man after John’s heart, and the knowledge that he was at Margaret’s side comforted him. John wondered if Phillip was aware of his mother’s condition, and lost sight of some of his animosity in the sympathy he felt for him. But Phillip knew less than John. Margaret had written that their mother was not so well and that she stayed in her room most of the time, but news was conveyed in such a way as to cause Phillip little alarm. This had been at Mrs. Ryerson’s own request. There was nothing to gain, she declared, by worrying Phil. And Margaret, realizing the truth of this, concurred. In all of her letters to Phillip Margaret pleaded with him to resume his friendship with John. The fault, she declared again and again, was all hers. John North had only done what she had asked him to, and Phillip was only hurting her, since she blamed herself for the unfortunate affair. She knew nothing of the meeting between John and Phillip, for the latter had made no mention of it in his letters home. She only knew that Phillip had left Elaine resolute to have nothing further to do with John, and that since then he had never mentioned his name. At first Phillip had answered her argument with others, but later he gave them no heed. Margaret in those days wondered miserably what John thought of her. Whether he knew the cause of Phillip’s anger; and if he did, whether he believed she was keeping silent and selfishly leaving him to shoulder the entire blame.