‘I must see that for myself,’ she said, rising up, and taking his head in her hands. Other feelings came into John’s heart as he felt those hands, with their skilful touch, putting aside his hair, examining his wound. She let him go in a few moments, with a slight pat which was almost a caress. It was what she would have done to any young patient, but this he did not know. ‘It is, as Susie said, nothing to be uneasy about. If it does not heal in a day or two, we must get Mr. Denton or Mr. Colville to look at it. But I think it will heal of itself. It would have been more prudent, John, to remain at home instead of seeking adventures in the streets the first night.’ ‘It didn’t look much like home,’ he said. ‘No; but it would, if you had waited for Susie. She is very like home even here. We cannot make a home for you, unhappily. The only thing for it, failing that, is to find you something to do.’ ‘That is what I desire most,’ he said. She had seated herself again, returning to her books, and was looking at him with the air of one who has but a short time to spare for any other interest. Her eyes glanced from him to the long lines of figures she had before her. ‘Couldn’t I do some of that for you?’ said John, with a sudden impulse. Mrs. Sandford started, and looked at him with astonished eyes. ‘My work?’ she said, ‘do you think you could do my work?’ ‘If it is only adding up figures, surely,’ said John. This time she let her eyes dwell on him a little longer, with a momentary smile, but more of wonder at his audacity than pleasure. ‘That was well meant,’ she said; ‘it was well meant. Susie, I think you can be spared to-day. You might go out with him, and show him something. It is natural that he should want to see something: and I shall have more time this evening to tell him what I have settled. I have heard of an engineer’s in which you can begin work. But you must take a holiday to-day. Susie will get her hat, and be ready at once. You will like that I suppose?’ ‘Yes,’ he said. Susie withdrew quickly, her face brightening, and John stood, watching his mother, who let her eye wander over her figures, then recovered herself with a glance towards him, in which he could read impatience restrained, and a desire that he should be gone. It was this, perhaps, that inspired him with the question, which a moment before he had never dreamed of putting to her. ‘Will you tell me,’ he said, ‘whether there was ever a Mr. Montressor who was a friend of my father’s?’ He asked this without knowing why. She started, and the pen fell out of her hand. If it were possible to change from her natural paleness, he would have said she grew more pale. Against the merciless shining of the great window he could see her tremble, or at least so he thought. She did not say anything for a moment, and when she spoke her voice was somehow different.