"My dear Percy, where did you spring from?"
"I have been home five days. I was still down at Marseilles, when I heard that Dijon was open again; and I came straight up.
"And how are you, Ralph?"
"Oh, I am getting all right again. How are they all, at home?"
"Well--quite well--but dreadfully anxious about you."
By this time the boys were out of the station, and were walking homeward.
"But you have not told me how you happened to be at the station."
"Well, I was waiting there, just on the chance of seeing you. Mamma was so dreadfully anxious about you that I wanted to do something. At any rate, I could not sit quiet at home. There are never more than two trains with passengers in a day, sometimes only one; so I have been staying down in the town, most of the days since I came home--having paid one of the railway people to send me word, directly the train was telegraphed as starting from Dole."
"How long is it since my letter arrived?"
"Nearly three weeks, Ralph; fortunately it came four or five days before a letter from Tempe, saying that he feared you were killed. Not having heard again, they were terribly anxious."