I have come close to him through the grass and stood beside him and
spoken to him before he grew aware that anyone was near."

"Perhaps he wants to be a sailor," suggested Dewes.

"No, I do not think it is that," Sybil answered quietly. "If it were so,
he would have told me."

"Yes," Dewes admitted. "Yes, he would have told you. I was wrong."

"You see," Mrs. Linforth continued, as though Dewes had not interrupted,
"it is not natural for a boy at his age to want to be alone, is it? I
don't think it is good either. It is not natural for a boy of his age to
be thoughtful. I am not sure that that is good. I am, to tell you the
truth, very troubled."

Dewes looked at her sharply. Something, not so much in her words as in
the careful, slow manner of her speech, warned him that she was not
telling him all of the trouble which oppressed her. Her fears were more
definite than she had given him as yet reason to understand. There was
not enough in what she had said to account for the tense clasp of her
hands, and the glint of terror in her eyes.

"Anyhow, he's going to the big school next term," he said; "that is, if
you haven't changed your mind since you last wrote to me, and I hope you
haven't changed your mind. All that he wants really," the Colonel added
with unconscious cruelty, "is companions of his own age. He passed in
well, didn't he?"

Sybil Linforth's face lost for the moment all its apprehension. A smile