All hoped he would, for there was not an inmate of Afton Hall who did not dearly love Theodore's stepbrother.
"It'll be as God wills," old John Bawdon replied, when appealed to for his opinion. "Maybe the Lord wants the little lad."
"But I want him, John; we all want him!" Theodore cried rebelliously.
"Aye, aye, Master Theodore, so we do. But it's a bit selfish of us to feel like that, I take it. 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.' And Master Jack loves the Lord dearly. To think he may see Jesus before me after all! Well, well, 'tis hard to understand. Here am I, old, but hearty yet, and that bit of a boy has had more suffering in the few years he has lived than I have had all my long life! Oh, you mustn't grudge him to Jesus, Master Theodore!"
But Theodore turned impatiently away, and stole once more to the door of the room where his stepbrother lay. Once Mrs. Barton came out, and the boy clutched at her dress, and pleaded earnestly to see Jack. She shook her head sadly, but he persisted in his request.
"No, my dear, no," she whispered. "It cannot be. He is suffering dreadfully; I cannot let you see him now."
Even as she spoke, Theodore heard a terrible wail from the little sufferer, and he shrank away in dismay. He saw how the sound wrung his stepmother's heart.
Her very lips turned pale as she breathed, "Oh, Theodore, pray for him!"
"I will," he answered; "oh, I will!"
And Theodore went to his own room, and kneeling down by his bedside, prayed as he had never prayed in his life before; and perhaps it was the first real prayer his heart had ever offered, for self was forgotten, and he spoke to God for Jack alone.