As for Geoff, he stole up through the shrubberies to reconnoitre the house and see where he could most easily make an entrance, with a half-comic sense of vagabondism; a man who behaved so ought to be guilty. But he was greatly surprised to see the library window through which he had come out on the previous night wide open; and yet more surprised to hear, at the sound of his own cautious footstep on the gravel, a still more cautious movement within, and to descry the kindly countenance of Mr. Tritton, his tutor, with a red nose and red eyes as from want of sleep, looking out with great precaution. Mr. Tritton’s anxious countenance lighted up at the sight of him. He came to the window very softly, but with great eagerness, to admit Geoff, and threw himself upon his pupil. “Where have you been--where have you been? But thank God you have come back,” he cried, in a voice which was broken by agitation. Geoff could not but laugh, serious as he had been before. Good Mr. Tritton had a dressing-gown thrown over his evening toilet of the previous night; his white tie was all rumpled and disreputable. He had caught a cold, poor good man, with the open window, and sneezed even as he received his prodigal; his nose was red, and so were his eyes, which watered, half with cold, half with emotion. “Oh, my dear Geoff,” he cried, with a shiver: “what is the cause of this? I have spent a most unhappy night. What can be the cause of it! But thank God you have come back; and if I can keep it from the knowledge of her ladyship, I will.” Then, though he was so tired and so serious, Geoff could not but laugh. “Have you been sitting up for me? How good of you! and what a cold you have got!” he said, struggling between mirth and gratitude. “Have you kept it from my mother? But I have been doing no harm, master. You need not look at me so anxiously. I have been walking almost all the night, and doing no harm.” “My dear Geoff? I have been very uneasy, of course. You never did anything of the kind before. Walking all night? you must be dead tired; but that is secondary, quite secondary: if you can really assure me, on your honour----” said the anxious tutor, looking at him, with his little white whiskers framing his little red face, more like a good little old woman than ever, and with a look of the most anxious scrutiny in his watery eyes. Mr. Tritton was very virtuous and very particular in his own bachelorly person, and there had crept upon him besides something of the feminine fervour of anxiety about his charge, which was in the air of this feminine and motherly house. “On my honour!” said Geoff, meeting his gaze with laughing eyes.