* * * * *
And where was Tom Thurnall all the while?
No man could tell.
Mark inquired; Lord Minchampstead inquired; great personages who had need of him at home and abroad inquired: but all in vain.
A few knew, and told Lord Minchampstead, who told Mark, in confidence, that he had been heard of last in the Circassian mountains, about Christmas, 1854: but since then all was blank. He had vanished into the infinite unknown.
Mark swore that he would come home some day: but two full years were past, and Tom came not.
The old man never seemed to regret him; never mentioned his name after a while.
"Mark," he said once, "remember David. Why weep for the child? I shall go to him, but he will not come to me."
None knew, meanwhile, why the old man needed not to talk of Tom to his friends and neighbours; it was because he and Grace never talked of anything else.
* * * * *