“I don’t know that it’s such a heathen point of view,” Tommy put in, in a new, grim voice. “If anybody’s hurt Lis, I _want_ ‘em punished as much as Sun Li does. Rick,” he said, his tone changing suddenly and piteously, “why did I have to break my leg that time and give Lis a chance to go in my place? Then he’d be here safe and sound right this minute.” “And you’d be over there in China,” Erica reminded him, quickly. “No, that wouldn’t be a bit better, Tommy dear.” “That doesn’t follow necessarily,” Tommy insisted. “I might not have gone ashore that last night. Or—or—oh, it might have been different lots of ways. But that does no good to think of now,” he added, soberly. “We’ve got to tell mother next, I guess. You—— Please come with us, Captain Bartlet. Mother will want to ask you questions, I know.” They crossed the garden without further words, the three walking abreast, their faces grave and anxious. Mrs. Folger, opening the door at Erica’s knock, scarcely needed the captain’s kind, stumbling explanation, to know that trouble of some sort had come to Lister. She heard him out quietly, for she came of a race that had been well and early trained in self-control. “Please come into the sitting room, Captain,” she said then, closing the front door behind them—for the four had been standing in the narrow entry hall. “There’s a fire in there, and the evening’s turned cool. I would take it kindly of you if you could sit a while and let me ask you all the details, so I can know better how to shape my plans.” Her face worked suddenly, but no tears came, and Erica, knowing how hard her aunt was struggling not to give way, thought better of her own eager impulse to run to her and fling comforting arms about her neck. They sat down before the bright grate fire, with Tommy standing behind his mother’s chair, as if he could not bear to watch her face that was so quiet and so very white. Milly Thorne, who had been curled up in a corner of the sofa at the right of the hearth, with a book on her lap, rose silently and crept nearer, till she crouched like a small thin black kitten at Mrs. Folger’s feet, her big, straining black eyes lifted with a new softness and pity in them, to the older woman’s face. Erica fought down a swift, unworthy little pang when she saw her aunt’s hand go almost unconsciously to Milly’s tumbled black hair and rest there as if she found some small comfort in the contact. And then Milly said a thing that surprised both her young cousins, her voice quite unlike the querulous voice of Milly Thorne as they had heard it since her arrival in the household. “I know what it’s like, Cousin Callie,” she whispered, fiercely, and laid her cheek against Mrs. Folger’s knee with a gentle, caressing touch that was as un-Milly-like as her voice. “I _know_. I—_adored_ my mother.”