‘Oh, Jack, my boy, what does all this mean?’ said another voice behind. Had he gone mad, or was he still in a dream? For this mocking spirit seemed to speak with Mrs. Egerton’s voice. The whole world seemed to swim in his eyes for a moment, and then things settled back into their place, and he found himself standing in his parlour with two ladies indeed, but the ladies were Elly and her aunt. Mrs. Egerton was seated in the only easy-chair in the room, the one which May the convict had preferred, and Elly stood all eagerness and life, like a creature made out of light, in the full shining of the morning sun which came in at the end window, and which had caught and translated itself bodily to her hair. John stood apart, like the shadow of this lovely group, which was of the light, as he said to himself, and could not have too much shining upon it, while he was of the dark and could do nothing but retire into the gloom. He turned towards Mrs. Egerton with a trembling which he could not disguise. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘did you come here? Why have you let her bring you--Why have you brought her here?’ ‘Jack,’ said Mrs. Egerton, ‘what does it all mean? Do you think anyone who cared for you as we do could be satisfied with what you said?’ ‘But you--didn’t much care for me,’ he said, feeling stupified and unable to face the real issue. She made a little gesture of impatience. ‘I know you have some reason to speak. I was against you: but that’s a very different thing from this. Do you think your friends could give you up when you were in trouble, my poor Jack? Oh! no! no----’ ‘Oh no, no, no,’ echoed Elly. ‘Not even papa. He said that we must come and see----’ ‘Yes,’ cried Mrs. Egerton, ‘my brother himself. He said what of course anybody would say, that to let you go off and make a martyr of yourself for some unknown reason was out of the question. He would have come himself, but you know he never goes anywhere.’ ‘And Mr. Cattley offered to come,’ said Elly, ‘but we felt that we were the right people to come, Jack.’