'I'm glad he's not been troublesome,' he answered slowly.
'He never was. Stephen Lisle'—she laid her hand anxiously on his arm—'he's but a little boy to be left without his mother. You'll take good care of him.'
'I must do the best I can, ma'am,' my father said after a minute, without looking at her.
How much afraid they all seemed to be that my father would be unkind to me. I wondered over it as White Billy trotted with us up the sandy lane. It was nothing new to me that he should drive on without saying a word. I had never been afraid of him, and I fell to questioning again whether he was heart-broken, and looking up into his face to see if I could find any signs of it. No; it did not seem as if he were thinking of anything in particular, unless it might be the pony, who had found it hard work to drag the cart through the heavy sand-track at a trot, and so had fallen back into a sober walk.
Since then I have often heard people say that Stephen Lisle was never just the same man after his wife died. Very likely they were right, and that it was because I was not old enough to read the marks trouble had left upon him that I could see no change.
I did not think about him long. The Castle came in sight. We crossed the bridge and went slowly up the hill. I knew quite well that my mother was not there, and yet my heart would beat faster and faster. Home at last, and how unchanged! The same flowerpots in the window, the roses blooming still. The door stood half open and inside the black cat sat purring in the sun.
I went in alone, looked all round, opened the door leading into the inner kitchen where I used to be sure of finding her. The flies buzzed in the window, and through the stillness the clock ticked slow and loud.
I knew she was not there, yet I called 'Mother,' under my breath, and when no one answered a terror of loneliness came over me. I rushed out of the house and round the corner, blinded by quick-coming tears. There was the well, and the bucket by the side standing half full of water just as it had stood that day.
Oh, if only I had never given the cup of water to the dying soldier! If he had never come—and yet mother's message said that she was glad.
Some one was standing at the well, leaning over it and looking, as I used to do, into the far-down water. It was the soldier's son, Cuthbert Franklyn.