The colonel did think about it, with the result that he decided to send Gus to Rayleigh, a village in Kent, where the colonel had a small estate, and consign him to the care of the Rev. Sebastian Mouncey, a clergyman who took a special interest in orphan lads, and had instituted a cottage home for them in his parish. But the police desired that Gus should be detained at hand for a day or two, that he might be ready to identify Lucas and his son if they were arrested. But though the police made every effort to track the burglars, and expressed confidence in their ultimate success, the two men appeared to have got well out of their reach.
Gus did not feel particularly glad when Edith told him of the plan that had been made for him. He would rather have gone back to his old life at Sally Dent's. It was a poor home he had with her, but he could hardly remember the days when he had known a better one. Sally had been kind to him in her way, and now he knew he was not to return to them, he was conscious of a strange drawing of the heart towards Sally and her children, and all the people with whom he had lived at Lavender Terrace. He became aware that he had an affection even for the baby—the heavy, fretful, exacting baby, who had so often made his arms to ache, and tried his patience to the utmost.
And Lucy—Gus thought of her with an aching heart. He longed to know what had become of her, and wondered sadly if he should ever see her again. Gus begged that he might be allowed to go and say good-bye to Sally and her children ere he went away into the country.
Edith thought the wish quite to his credit, and persuaded her grandfather to grant it. But he was still suspicious of the lad, and thinking it might be a ruse to effect an escape, he resolved to accompany Gus to Glensford.
Though Sally had declared that Gus should never darken her doors again, she received him kindly, being impressed by his appearance in the neat new suit of clothes in which Edith had seen him arrayed, and also by the stateliness of the gentleman who accompanied him.
The colonel did not enter the house, but stood on the doorstep, in a position to see that Gus escaped neither by window nor door from Sally's room, into which she had drawn him.
Sally questioned him eagerly as to all that had happened since he left her house; she admired his clothes, she pressed him to drink from her black bottle, whilst the children gathered round him, pleased to see their old friend again.
"Mrs. Dent," said Gus, when at last Sally paused, "I wish you would give me that Bible of father's. I should like to take it with me where I am going; I have nothing that belonged to him. You have it still, have you not?"
Mrs. Dent hesitated. She glanced at the high shelf on which the Bible lay, and then through the half-open door at the colonel's stately form. She longed to refuse the request. She never read the Bible, but none the less she wished to keep that handsome copy. But she knew she had no right to keep it from the boy, and she believed that if she refused, Gus would call the colonel to insist upon her giving him his own. So reluctantly she climbed on a chair, and lifted down the book. She undid the paper in which it was wrapped, and looked regretfully at the embossed covers.
"One don't often see a Bible like this," she remarked, and with that she opened it.