"I think," said Mr. Grosvenor, "we shall be able to refit you without drawing from Herbert's wardrobe."
So the conversation went on, and our hero, before the dinner closed, found himself entirely at his ease in spite of his soiled clothes.
CHAPTER XXXI.
HOW THE NEWS WENT HOME.
Frank had one source of anxiety and embarrassment connected with his recent adventure which had occupied a considerable space of his thoughts.
It was this. How could he let his mother know that he was still alive without its coming to the knowledge of Mr. Craven? Convinced, as he was, that his step-father was at the bottom of the treacherous plot to which he had nearly fallen a victim, he wished him to suppose that it had succeeded in order to see what course he would pursue in consequence. His subsequent course would confirm his share in the plot or relieve him from any complicity, and Frank wanted to know, once for all, whether he was to regard his step-father as a disguised and dangerous foe or not. But he was not willing that his mother should rest long under the impression that he had perished among the Alps. In her delicate state of health he feared that it would prove too much for her, and that it might bring on a fit of sickness. He wished, therefore, in some way, to communicate to her secretly the knowledge that he had escaped. But if he wrote Mr. Craven would see the letter or know that one had been received. Evidently, therefore, he could not write directly to her.
After some perplexity, he saw a way out of the difficulty.
He had recently received a letter from his old friend and school companion, Ben Cameron, stating that the latter had gone to Wakefield, ten miles distant, to spend two months with an uncle, and asking Frank to direct his next letter there. It flashed upon our hero that he could write to Ben, giving him an account of what had happened, and asking him to acquaint his mother secretly, saying nothing of this letter in case he should hear that he, Frank, was dead.
The day after he joined the Grosvenor party he carried out this plan, writing a long letter to Ben, which terminated as follows: