He went home, and straight up to his room, feeling it intolerable to meet his sister; and there, the first sleepless night he had ever known, convinced
him that to the convalescents it would be cruelty to send his intelligence, when it amounted to no more than that their poor little boy had been made over to an unscrupulous woman and a violent, good-for-nothing man.
‘No,’ said Herbert, as he tossed over; ‘it would be worse than believing him quietly dead, now they have settled down to that. I must get him back before they know anything about it. But how? I must hunt up those wretches’ people here, and find where they are gone; if they know—as like as not they won’t. But I’ll throw everything up till I find the boy!’ He knelt up in his bed, laid his hand on his Bible—his uncle’s gift—and solemnly swore it.
And Herbert was another youth from that hour.
When he had brought his ideas into some little order, the foremost was that he must see Rose Rollstone, discover how much she knew or guessed, and bind her to silence. ‘No fear of her, jolly little thing!’ said he to himself; but, playfellows as they had been, private interviews were not easy to secure under present circumstances.
However, the tinkling of the bell of the iron church suggested an idea. ‘She is just the little saint of a thing to be always off to church at unearthly hours. I’ll catch her there—if only that black coat isn’t always after her!’
So Herbert hurried off to the iron building, satisfied himself with a peep that Rose’s sailor hat was there, and then—to make sure of her—crept into a seat by the door, and found his plans none the worse for praying for all needing help in mind, body, or estate. Rose came out alone, and he was
by her side at once. ‘I say, Rose, you did not speak about that last night?’
‘Oh no, indeed!’
‘You’re a brick! I got it all out of that sister of mine. I’m only ashamed that she is my sister!’