He got home before he expected, in the multiplicity of these thoughts; and when the door was opened to him noiselessly, without anyone appearing, he knew it was grandmamma, who was always on the watch for him. She said, in a whisper, ‘You’ve been a long time, dear. Hush, don’t make any noise, grandfather has gone up to bed.’ ‘I was kept by a strange thing,’ said John. ‘Come into the parlour, and I’ll tell you, grandmamma. Why, the fire is nearly out, though it’s so cold!’ ‘There’s a fire in your room, my dear. You forget how late it is--near eleven o’clock. And what was the strange thing, Johnnie? There are not many strange things in our village at this hour of the night.’ She was wrapped up in a great white shawl, and the pretty old face smiled over this, her complexion relieved and brightened by it, a picture of an old lady, beaming with tender love and cheerful calm. ‘It was very strange,’ said John, ‘though it seemed at first only a drunken fellow at the door of the “Green Man.”’ ‘Mr. Cattley shouldn’t have taken you that way. I don’t like to have you mixed up with drunken men.’ ‘How could I be mixed up?’ said John, with a laugh. ‘But the strange thing is that he says he’s a returned convict, and that he was calling out and asking everyone for some woman, a Mrs. May.’ Mrs. Sandford clutched at John with her hand. Her lips fell apart with horror, the colour fled from her face. ‘Oh, good Lord! What is it you are saying?’ she gasped, scarcely able to speak. ‘You don’t mean to say you are frightened, with the doors locked and all the windows fastened! Why, grandmamma,’ said John, laughing, ‘you are as bad as the people in “Les Miserables,” that I read to you, you know---- ’ ‘Oh, yes, I’m frightened!’ she said, leaning upon him, and putting her hand to her heart, as if she had received a blow. He felt the throbbing which went all through the slight frame as if it had been a machine vibrating with the quickened movement. ‘Why, grandmamma,’ he said again. ‘You to be frightened! He can’t, if he were a demon, do any harm to you. And shall I tell you what Mr. Cattley said? He said it might be a bit of faithfulness and human feeling, his coming to look for this poor woman, to bring her news of her husband.’ ‘What had he to do with her husband?’ said the old lady, almost in a whisper, turning away from him her scared and panic-stricken face. ‘Oh, he had been in the same prison with him,’ said John. ‘He said her husband was his mate--that means, you know--but of course you know what it means. And, by-the-by,’ said the boy, ‘can you tell me, grandmamma, how it is that I seem to have some association or other--I can’t tell what it is--with the name of May?’ CHAPTER VI. GRANDMAMMA.