"'Thank you, yes,' said Jack, and then he found himself alone with his old master.
"'You said you tried to trace me after I left Ryeburn,' said Sawyer. 'Will you tell me why? There was no special reason for it, was there? I know I was disliked, but the sort of enmity I incurred must soon have died out. I was too insignificant for it to last. And the one great endeavour I made was to injure no one. That was why I left hurriedly—before I should be forced to make any complaints.'
"He stopped—exhausted already by what he had said. 'And I have so much to say to him,' he whispered regretfully to himself.
"'I know,' said Jack sadly. 'I understood it all before you had left many months.'
"Mr. Sawyer looked pleased but surprised.
"'It is very kind of you to speak so,' he said. 'I remember that dear little brother of yours when he came to see me off that last morning—I remember his saying, 'I'm sure Jack would have come if he had thought of it.' You don't know what a comfort the remembrance of that boy has been to me sometimes. You must tell him so. Dear me—he must be nearly grown up. Is he too in the army?'
"'No, oh no,' said Jack. 'He—he died the year after you knew him.'
"Sawyer's eyes looked up wistfully in Jack's face. 'Dead?' he said. 'That dear boy?'
"'Yes,' Jack went on. 'It was of scarlet fever. It was very bad at Ryeburn that half. We both had it, but I was soon well again. It was not till Carlo was ill that he told me of having run over to wish you good-bye that morning—he had been afraid I would laugh at him for being soft-hearted—what a young brute I was—forgive my speaking so, Sawyer, but I can't look back to that time without shame. What a life we led you, and how you bore it! You were too good for us.'
"Sawyer smiled. 'No,' he said. 'I cannot see it that way. I had not the knack of it—I was not fit for the position. The boys were very good boys, as boys go. It would have been inexcusable of me to have made them suffer for what, after all, was an unfortunate circumstance only. I had attempted what I could not manage. And Carlo—he is dead—somehow, perhaps because I am so near death myself, it does not shock or startle me. Dear little fellow that he was!'