John had read ‘Les Miserables’ (in the original; for Mr. Cattley knew so much! and had taught him French as well as Latin), and a comparison between the incidents rose in his mind. He felt, as one feels at that age, that it was rather grand to be going along in the dark, thinking of Victor Hugo’s great book and comparing French and English sentiment, he who was only a country boy; and this feeling mingled with the comparison he was making. Mr. Cattley was not an ideal saint like Monseigneur Bienvenu, but neither were the English village-folks so hard-hearted as the French ones. They would not have left even a returned convict to perish in the cold. This suggestion of perishing in the cold, which made him shiver, sent John’s imagination all abroad upon shipwrecks at sea, and tales of desolate places, the martyrs of the Arctic regions and those in the burning deserts; his fancy flitting from one to another without coherence or any close connection as thoughts do. And then, with a sudden pang, as if an arrow had gone into his heart, he remembered what had been told him only this evening, that his own father, papa, who had been a sort of god to his infancy, was dead. How was it possible that he could forget it as he had done, letting any trifling incident take possession of his mind and banish that great fact from the foreground? He felt more guilty than could be said, and yet, while feeling so, his mind flitted off again in spite of him to a hundred other subjects. The recollection returned with a fluctuating thrill, at intervals, but it would not remain. It linked itself even with this question about Mrs. May. May! what had that to do with the revelation which had been made to him?--that, a mere vulgar incident seen on the roadside--the other an event which ought to make everything sad to him. He went on a little quicker, spurred by the thought. His father’s death had not made everything sad to him. It was but one incident among many which came back from time to time; but the other incidents--he felt ashamed to think they had interested him quite as much. It had been altogether an exciting evening. First that intimation, and then the talk about what he was going to be, and the consent of his grandparents to his plan. Either of these facts had been quite enough to fill up an evening, or, indeed, many evenings, and now they all came together; and then, as if that were not enough, the startling scene in the darkness of the night, the returned convict just like ‘Les Miserables,’ but so different, the ‘bit of faithfulness,’ perhaps, and ‘human feeling.’ John said to himself that this was a poor little outside affair, not worth to be mentioned beside the others, but yet he could not help wondering whether the poor fellow, though he was so little worthy of interest, would ever find his Mrs. May.