"I am quite strong, mamma, as strong as ever," Percy laughed; but his laugh was, in spite of himself, a little unnatural.
His father looked sharply up.
Percy sat down, and drank a little of the tea his mother handed to him.
"I waited for the train to come in," he said, "and--of course it may not be so--but I heard of someone who, by the description, seemed to be Ralph."
"What was it, Percy, what was it?" Milly cried; while her mother gazed at him with a pale face, and appealing eyes.
"Don't agitate yourself, mamma dear--you see, it may not be true, after all--but among the people in the train was one who had come straight from Bourges. I spoke to him, and he said that he had heard--by a friend who had come straight from Vierzon--that a young officer had just arrived there, in disguise; who had been wounded, and in hiding, ever since the capture of Orleans. You know, mamma, it is just the time I calculated he would be coming; and from the fact of his being a young staff officer, and in disguise, I have very little doubt it is Ralph."
Captain Barclay rose from his seat and--standing for a moment behind his wife's chair--looked at Percy, and then at the door, inquiringly. Percy nodded.
Captain Barclay leaned over, and kissed his wife
"Thank God, dear, for all His mercies! Another day or two, and we shall be having him home."
"Thank God, indeed!" Mrs. Barclay said; "but though I hope--though I try to think it was him--perhaps it was not, perhaps--"